If You See the Stars Without Me
by tea and leaves
Summary: Kurt's life spirals out of control after a tragic loss. Blaine works at Kurt's favorite coffee shop, and all he can do is write messages on Kurt's coffee cup. "What happens when you forget who you are? What happens when you remember?"
1. The Regular

**DISCLAIMER: Though I would like to take credit for Glee, and would like to go all Sue Sylvester on Ryan, Ian and Brad's asses, life just doesn't work that way. I do not own Glee.**

**I will post specific warnings chapter-by-chapter, but be prepared for language and sexual content throughout.**

* * *

Blaine Anderson walked around the back room of the BeeBee Coffee Company. It wasn't the greatest job in the world – a barista, really? He could see his father's face, not to mention his brother's. But it was a job, and he needed the extra cash in college. His roommate was threatening to tell the school that he was harboring a dangerous fugitive in their apartment if he didn't buy the next package of toilet paper. But that was Santana Lopez. She was always saying things like that.

Then again, he thought as he examined a burlap sack of coffee, she _had_once dosed his lotion with cayenne pepper. It was better to play it safe and find a job.

He had never had a job before. Money wasn't a problem when he lived with his parents. But his parents were a problem when he took off to college after admitting he was gay.

Santana was his best friend, but the money she brought in from her singing career only went so far and it wasn't fair for her to pay for everything. And besides, her upbringing hadn't been as cushy as his. She said they used cactuses as toilet paper when she was growing up in Lima Heights Adjacent.

"So those are the basics!" his boss said loudly, and Blaine snapped back into reality. "You said you've been a barista before?"

Blaine cringed at his fake resume. (Santana's idea.) "Yeah. At Starbucks."

"Great, you'll do fine. We _do_ have a lot of regulars so try to learn their orders. And don't let Wes boss you around. He's a dick."

_Well that's got to be workplace harassment_, thought Blaine, but he didn't say anything other than, "I'll be sure to watch out for him."

"You start tomorrow at six. You said you lived in Brooklyn?"

"Yeah, in Bushwick."

"Well, that's a hell of a subway ride. See you tomorrow."

Blaine smiled for the first time that day. "Thanks."

"No problem kid."

Blaine left the coffee shop and tugged his sweater closer around his slim frame. It was October and getting colder all the time, and his boss was right – it _was_ a long ride home. He shivered a little and walked more quickly towards the subway station. He felt a familiar twinge, one he felt almost every day when he went home. He loved Santana, of course. But he missed coming home to someone he _loved_. He'd only had one boyfriend, and he didn't turn out to be as great as he seemed at first, but still, Blaine missed him. Not _him_. But the confidence of going home to a kiss.

One good thing about Santana was that she never had girlfriends – she had been "above all that relationship garbage" after her high school sweetheart, Brittany, broke up with her. Both single and brokenhearted, he and Santana got along pretty well and made a great team at sleazy clubs.

They loved sleazy clubs almost as much as they loved Indian food, which was quite a lot.

Feeling a little better and looking forward to telling Santana he got a job, Blaine got on the train home, and watched the flashing lights the whole way.

Blaine unlocked his apartment door and it opened to a small, sparse flat. Santana was sitting at the kitchen table in a skin-tight turquoise dress and smeared eye makeup. She was holding a pen in one hand, her phone in the other.

"San?" Blaine said tentatively. He held up the bag of Indian food he'd picked up.

Santana glanced up and looked right back down.

"I got a job," Blaine said, a little more loudly.

"About time," said Santana. Then she sighed and covered her face. "I'm sorry, Blaine. I had an awful day." She looked up and smiled hesitantly. "What kind of job?"

"I'm a…barista."

"Oh my God, how _gay_."

"It pays $12 an hour," said Blaine. "But it's in Manhattan."

"Jesus. Well, we could go in together in the morning. Sometimes it feels like NYADA is in another country it takes so long to get to. Ugh, I'm sorry," she said again. "But this _bitch_ beat me in my audition for _Chicago_. I mean, I am _made_ to sing _All that Jazz._"

"I think there's still openings for Maria, you know, _West Side Story_. Though you may need to work on that…soft…personality."

"Hey!" she shouted suddenly. "You brought food!"

"You just noticed?" Blaine laughed.

"Yeah," she said, getting up and snatching the bag from him. "Unh…smells like Indian! Mi abuela would roll in her premature grave."

Santana went to the kitchen and opened up the containers of rice pilaf and curry.

"I love you," she said through a forkful of rice. "Marry me. We'll open up a registry and people will buy us things. C'mon. Get over here! Eat!"

Blaine smiled and walked into the kitchen. He and Santana never stopped to heat the food up or put it on a plate. They ate it all out of the containers and licked them clean.

They had never been so hungry.

* * *

TEN MILES AWAY in Manhattan, Kurt Hummel threw himself into bed with a drink in his hand. He wasn't old enough to drink, but his boyfriend told him he needed to relax more often. Vodka was relaxing.

It was late and Kurt was tired, even without the alcohol in his system. Between his job at Vogue and keeping his stepbrother in line, he was _always_ tired. His boss, Isabelle, was glorious, but she was demanding. She wanted a whole new line of pants by Thursday. Meanwhile, Finn had been arrested for drug possession, again, and, again, Kurt had to bail him out.

Kurt moved to New York as soon as he graduated high school. He didn't get into his dream school, NYADA, but he moved anyway. He had been hurt a little too much to stay in Lima, despite his dad and stepmom's support. New York was as different as he had hoped. He got a job at Vogue, something he thought he would never have. He figured out that was considered attractive and he used it. He moved up. He never had money, but people respected him. And he found a boyfriend, another thing that seemed impossible in Lima. Malcolm Black, a British investor with eyes that flashed in a million directions at once. Kurt fell in love with the idea of him immediately, but it took longer to love the actual man. Malcolm was handsome. He moved fast. And love made Kurt nervous. It had only ever been an idea, and when Kurt thought of love, he also remembered being beaten up and called an abomination.

When he finally worked up the courage to ask Malcolm out, Malcolm had smiled so widely that for a horrifying moment, Kurt thought he was going to laugh at him. But Malcolm didn't laugh. His smile softened, and he said, "I thought you'd never ask, Kurt."

The phone rang and Kurt jumped. He answered it and heard his father's voice.

"Kurt! Hey, you actually picked up this time."

Kurt smiled helplessly. "Yeah. Hi Dad."

"You sound tired. You gettin' enough sleep, Bud?"

Kurt laughed. "Not really."

"You know I don't like to hear that Kurt."

"I know," said Kurt. "It's been hard, but I'll get some sleep tonight."

"That Isabelle woman isn't pushing you too hard?"

Kurt was sure his dad was sitting in his favorite orange armchair, sipping a beer while Carole listened in the background, and the image made him feel a little warmer.

"Isabelle is perfect dad."

"And your boyfriend? He's treating you OK? Because I'll—"

"Bring out the shotgun, I know," said Kurt. "It's a sweet offer."

"He's not treating you well?" asked Burt, alarmed.

"Malcolm's great, Dad."

Kurt knew that Burt was holding back what he wanted to say – that Malcolm was too old, that he was too rich, that Kurt deserved someone who _loved him like I loved your mom._

"Really," Kurt heard himself say. "We're fine."

"Well that's good to hear. You're coming home for Christmas right?"

"Of course."

"Well…" Burt paused and Kurt sat forward, nervous. "We were thinking you could both come."

"Oh…well…Mal's pretty busy over Christmas."

"That's what I thought. Well, I tried."

Kurt sat back uneasily, swirling the vodka in his glass. Burt seemed to sense that the mood wasn't going to get any better, so he said, "And how's Finn?"

"Finn's…" Kurt wanted to tell his dad what he'd been keeping in for weeks. _Finn is a wreck and I don't know how to help. He's going to get in trouble. He IS in trouble. He needs help._ But all his words failed him and he just said, "…his usual self. He's okay."

Kurt heard the door open and he glanced over as Malcolm came in and hung up his coat.

"Sorry," Malcolm whispered, nodding at the phone in Kurt's hand. "I'll be quiet."

Kurt patted a spot on the bed and Malcolm sat next to him. Kurt held the phone away and kissed his boyfriend hello, then put the receiver back up to his ear. Burt was in the middle of saying something.

"—after what happened to his dad, you know, it could be genetic! You need to watch out for him and I know you are, but, you know, he's fragile."

"I know Dad. I do. Look, uh, Mal just got home, so I'll have to call you tomorrow."

"Well, alright Kurt. Take care of yourself."

Kurt got off the phone and looked at his boyfriend blankly for a second.

"Hi," he said finally, laughing. "I got a little lost for a second there."

"A little lost in my eyes, you mean," said Malcolm.

Kurt rolled his own eyes, which were a different shade of blue than Malcolm's – blue and green and silver and gold, like the reflection of the sun.

"That sounded like a hard phone call," said Malcolm.

"I can't help that my brother's a fuck-up," Kurt said irritably. Then he shook his head. "I shouldn't have said that. I just mean...he's difficult."

"I know, Babe," said Malcolm, tucking Kurt's hair behind his ear and letting his fingers trail down his neck. Kurt glanced into his eyes, and then leaned into a deep kiss.

Having sex with Malcolm was just an instinct at this point. Neither of them thought about it and it was good, but never surprising or new.

"I probably taste like vodka," joked Kurt. "How trashy."

"It's actually kind of hot," said Malcolm, kissing his boyfriend more roughly and moving his hand up his leg. Kurt felt an inexplicable urge to cry, but he passed it off as worry for Finn, and he kissed Malcolm back.

* * *

Blaine woke up with a start. He thought he was alone at first. Then he saw Santana standing over him with fire in her eyes.

"Well, Pretty Pony," she said in her most dangerous voice. "I guess your alarm didn't ring?"

"Whatimis?" he asked.

"What?" she snapped.

"What _time_ is it?" he asked again.

"We have ten minutes to get on the subway."

"Oh, fuck, San! Why didn't you get me up?"

"I thought you deserved a stressful morning. Better hurry!"

Blaine flung himself out of bed, combed gel through his hair as quickly as he could, and threw on a clean white shirt.

"OK!" he said, running past Santana and grabbing a banana. "Let's go."

"Coat, Dalton. You're forgetting your coat. And if you're going to eat something phallic anyway, an ounce of semen has way more protein than a banana."

"A banana doesn't make me question my sexuality the way swallowing - that stuff - does."

Santana grinned in delight at making Blaine uncomfortable and they stepped outside. Their stairwell, and the rest of Brooklyn, was covered in a thin coat of ice. They slid and stumbled to the nearest subway tunnel and spent the ride huddled together. Blaine got off a stop before Santana and walked to BeeBee's coffee shop through the cold. He was the first barista there, despite his late start. He put on an apron and turned the open sign on.

Business was steady until 8, when there was a rush. Another barista (he introduced himself as Wes) arrived just in time, and he tried to help Blaine with such simple tasks that Blaine was sure he was being made fun of. Blaine was just about to snap at him when he looked up and found himself eye-to-eye with the most beautiful man he had ever seen. His skin was luminous and warm and his eyes were like blue quartz. He smiled lightly at Blaine and began to order. It was loud in the coffee shop, but Blaine could hear him well enough to know his voice was clear and almost mournful, like a distant bell.

Just as Blaine had grabbed a cup to write his order, Wes knocked him out of the way. "That's a regular, I'll get it."

Blaine looked at Wes in outrage, and then at the young man, who rolled his eyes and mouthed, "Ignore him." Blaine laughed and looked at his feet, blushing. When he looked back up, the man was gone.

* * *

Kurt made his way out of BeeBee coffee shop - a stupid name, really, he thought - and onto the icy streets. It was cold for October and he was desperate to get into his office at Vogue. He sipped his nonfat mocha slowly, thinking about the set of hazel eyes he had accidentally looked into. It wasn't like him to smile at a stranger. Especially unlike him to joke with one. He wondered vaguely what the new barista's name was while he climbed the stairs to his office, but Isabelle interrupted any more thoughts he might have by shoving a portfolio into his hands.

"This is one of our newer designers work, and it has potential but it isn't quite where I want it to be. Will you work your magic?"

Kurt smiled. "Of course."

He didn't think about the nameless barista again.

* * *

**Please review! I want to be a writer and reviews mean everything to me, really. :)**


	2. Imagining Things

Kurt was just about to go home when he noticed he still hadn't thrown out his coffee cup. He picked it up and glanced at the handwriting on the side, wondering what the cute barista's handwriting would have looked like if the other one had given him a chance. Then he threw the cup away and went down the unlit halls of Vogue - he was always there later than anyone - and walked to the elevator. His phone buzzed in his pocket.

_Where are you? - M_

Still at work - K

_Will you be home soon? - M_

No. I have to see Finn. - K

_OK, good luck. - M_

Kurt stared at his phone even after it had gone to black. Then he stepped into the elevator and began his trip to Finn's.

Finn and Kurt's families adopted each other when they lived in Lima. Burt had fallen in love with Finn's mom Carole, and when he married her, Kurt was forced to share a house with strangers. Not _strangers_. In fact, he had a major crush on Finn at the time. But he wasn't used to sharing the space and he and Finn had their share of arguments before really becoming brothers.

But they loved each other now. They needed each other now.

Finn had been different ever since finding out the true cause of his father's death - an overdose. After moving to New York with his girlfriend Rachel, he lost touch with reality and started "experimenting." That was the word he used anyway.

It was ironic. He hated his father's memory for years after finding out what happened, but the only way he could deal with it now was by doing the same drugs his father did. Rachel was grief-stricken and didn't know how to leave someone who walked so close to disaster.

Kurt didn't think someone like her deserved to go through so much just when she was trying to start her life.

Finn and Rachel lived in Brooklyn and Kurt resigned himself to a long taxi ride. When he showed up at the small brownstone apartment, all the lights were out. Kurt knocked and Rachel opened the door, bleary-eyed.

"Oh. Hi Kurt."

"Were you asleep? I should have called, I'm sorry."

The truth was that he never called. He was like a social service worker. He always showed up unannounced so they couldn't hide anything.

"We thought we'd get an early start tomorrow," said Rachel. "I have a field trip in Boston."

Rachel attended the performing arts school, NYADA.

"Should I...come back?"

"No, you came all this way. Finn's inside."

Kurt went inside and looked around the apartment. It was extremely small. The carpet was damp and matted and a chemical smell hung in the air. Rachel looked twenty years older than she really was. Constant worry did funny things, like twist your mouth and make your skin turn gray. Kurt remembered how beautiful Rachel looked at Senior Prom in a seashell pink gown. How could beauty be a memory when they were 18?

Finn came into view and smiled at Kurt. His smile didn't seem to have suffered as much as Rachel's.

They hugged and Kurt pulled a box of peanut butter caramels out of bag. "Didn't you use to love these? I found them at the grocery store."

"Yeah!" Finn said enthusiastically, taking them. "Yeah, thanks man!"

Kurt noticed how Finn's green sweatshirt hung on him. He was extremely skinny.

"So..." Kurt trailed off.

"I know," said Finn. "You're here to check in on me. Burt asked you to, right?"

"I just wanted to," Kurt said.

"Well, I'm doing great. Here! Come look at this."

Finn grabbed Kurt's arm and dragged him into the kitchen. Rachel stood back with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"I got this chip!" Finn said, opening a high cabinet and pulling out something that looked like a big bronze coin. "See! It says freedom. _That's_ what I'm talking about! That's what they mean in those meetings. You've gotta find your freedom."

"Oh! That's great, Finn."

"Yeah, I got this after a month. A whole month." Finn shrugged. "Maybe that doesn't sound that long to you. And I know what you're thinking."

"That I've seen these chips before and..."

"And they don't stick. But I'm trying Kurt! I - I want to do it for her." Finn looked over his shoulder at Rachel. "That's my girl. I want to do it for her."

Rachel smiled feebly. Kurt thought he saw her eyes fill.

"Well, I'm proud of you," Kurt said to Finn. "I'm really proud of you."

Finn smiled hugely. Sometimes addicts were like little kids. They just wanted a smile from an adult. They just wanted a little recognition.

"And we saved up the money to get the rug cleaned!" Finn went on, reaching into the fridge to pull out the milk. "And maybe next week we'll be able to buy some curtains."

"If you guys ever need anything-"

"We don't want Malcolm to pay for us," Rachel said gently, walking up to them and putting an arm around Finn.

Finn poured three glasses of milk and pulled a box of Chips Ahoy cookies off the shelf. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Finn holding the box over Rachel's head so she couldn't reach, Rachel screaming with laughter and chasing him, snatching the box and balancing it on her head...

_Maybe next week we'll be able to buy some curtains..._

Rachel's light pink cardigan moved in the draft from the air vents, and Kurt caught the smell of strawberries from her hair. Finn's grin was as wide as China.

_Next week..._

Kurt knew the joy in Rachel's eyes, in his own eyes, was only temporary. He lived in two worlds all the time, always split between hope and reality. He was hopeful in moments like these, but all the hope really did was strengthen the grief that was sure to come.

_Next week...if there is a next week..._

There had been too many close calls to believe in hope anymore.

* * *

Kurt didn't get back to Manhattan until nearly midnight. He was walking down the hallway to his flat when he passed a young man. They met eyes and the man smiled, but the smile froze suddenly on his lips, and he looked away like he had seen a ghost.

Kurt glanced over his shoulder as the man disappeared.

When he went inside, Malcolm was bent into the fridge, looking for something. He glanced back at Kurt, who was still in the dark of the entryway.

"Oh, did you forget-" Malcolm stopped abruptly when Kurt turned the light on. "Oh. Hi."

"Did I forget...?"

"That the trains are farther apart at night," said Malcolm, in a tone that made Kurt sure that wasn't what he was originally going to say. "Because you're home awfully late, that's all."

"I said I would be home late," said Kurt warily.

"Yeah, just - I'm sorry. I'm tired."

"Were you expecting somebody else?"

"No, of course not! I've just been talking to myself. You know how I don't like being here alone at night."

"Whatever you say," Kurt said. "I'm going to bed."

Kurt walked into the bedroom and began to unbutton his shirt. Malcolm appeared in the doorway.

"You know," he said heatedly. "I really _don't_ like being alone here."

"I have to take care of my brother, Malcolm! I'm the only one who can!"

"Doesn't he have a girlfriend? Can't she deal with him?"

"He's family."

"I don't want to argue with you, Kurt."

"Then stop talking."

Kurt got in bed and stared out the window at the weak stars. Malcolm got in next to him after a moment and kissed his shoulder.

"Don't touch me."

"I'm sorry! I'm just trying to help."

Kurt looked at him suddenly. "Why is your hair wet?"

"Wh-what?"

"Did you just take a shower?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You never take showers at night."

"Well, I took one tonight." He squinted. "Are you okay?"

Kurt didn't answer. He threw the covers off of him and ran out of the apartment, all the way down the hall to where he saw the man disappear earlier. He looked around wildly, and when he saw that he was alone, he trudged back.

"I'm sorry," he said when he saw Malcolm. "I'm imagining things."

* * *

Blaine was beginning to get seriously annoyed with Wes, his perfectionist coworker. _Don't fold the towels like that. You have to steam the milk FIRST. That is simply TOO MUCH hazelnut._

_You're about to have too much hazelnut up your ass_, thought Blaine, shooting Wes a dirty look as he cleaned out the dishwasher.

The worst part was that for three days now, Wes had taken the beautiful man's coffee order. Wes wasn't even gay. He just got a sick pleasure from denying Blaine what he wanted, and what he wanted was to hear that man's voice again.

It was almost 8 o' clock, and Blaine glanced at the door every few second.

"Waiting for your _friend_?" Wes hissed.

"Will you just let me take his order?"

"He's out of your league."

"So what! Stop protecting me."

Wes rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Protecting you. More like protecting the company from an indecent exposure lawsuit."

"Oh, because I'm going to rip his clothes off. Clever."

The door opened and Kurt walked in.

"C'mon," Blaine said desperately. "Let me take his order. I'll pick up two of your hours later."

"Deal," said Wes, and Blaine's heart began to beat a tattoo against his chest. He took a cup and a Sharpie, and Kurt approached him.

He didn't say anything at first, and when Blaine didn't say anything either, he laughed. "Oh, you don't know my order! You're new, right?"

Blaine nodded, all his breath stopped up in his lungs. He thought he would squeak if he spoke.

"So, I'd like a nonfat mocha."

"Okay," said Blaine. Yes, it was a squeak. "And your name?"

"Oh. It's Kurt."

"Kurt," Blaine repeated, writing it. "My name's Blaine. But I guess you don't need to know my name."

"It's nice to meet you, Blaine," said Kurt, smiling brilliantly. "And actually, could you put whipped cream on my mocha?"

Blaine grinned. "Yeah, of course."

Kurt paid him and walked away with a quick smile over his shoulder.

"Smooooooth," said Wes.

"Well, he asked for whipped cream," said Blaine in a low voice. "That's like a metaphor for sex."

"Uh huh. Keep believing that."

Blaine rolled his eyes at Wes, and was then struck by sudden inspiration. He could write something on Kurt's cup. He could write anything he wanted on Kurt's cup.

Before he knew it, he had drawn a winky face. _A winky face_. The dorkiness that was his high school career had just exploded again. This time on a coffee cup. A coffee cup meant for the most attractive boy he'd ever met.

"Are you going to make that mocha or not?" asked Wes.

Blaine made the mocha in a state of panic, handed the cup to Kurt without meeting his eyes, and went into the back room to spend a moment mourning his chance at a relationship.

When he came back out, Kurt was near the coffee counter again. He nearly spun and retreated, but Wes shoved him up to the counter.

"Do you have any spoons?" asked Kurt. "I couldn't find any."

"They're right over there," said Blaine, pointing them out.

"Oh, thanks," said Kurt, and he took one of the spoons. As he passed the counter again, he said, "You put cocoa powder on my mocha. That was really nice."

And he winked.

* * *

"My winky face worked!" was the first thing Blaine said to Santana that night.

"What's that, Flabby Piglet?" she asked.

She was sitting in front of the TV and shaking out a bottle of nail polish, a position she hated to be bothered in.

"I – my – the winky face—"

"Are you having a seizure?"

"There's this guy…"

He and Santana talked all night.

* * *

Rachel knew something was wrong right away.

When she woke up at 3:30 in order to make her charter bus to Boston on time, she noticed the bed was empty. Finn should have been asleep there.

She called his name, but her chest was already collapsing in on itself. Finding a boyfriend missing in the middle of the night was scary for any girl, but worse for her. Would this be the time it was too late?

"Finn!" she called again, her voice more panicked. "Finn are you here?"

There was no answer. She ran around the house looking, but she was alone. She dialed Kurt.

By the time Kurt got there, it was nearly five o' clock.

"Rach, you're going to miss your Boston trip—"

"It doesn't matter now," she said, twisting her hair back in a clip and pulling on a coat. "We have to look for him."

Kurt nodded. "Rach, I'm – I'm cold. Can I borrow a jacket?"

She handed him Finn's letterman jacket from high school. "This one's warm."

She and Kurt had been through this before. Finn would disappear in the middle of the night, and Kurt and Rachel would hunt around Brooklyn for hours in the cold until they found him, collapsed among the trash bins or passed out in a community garden.

"I really thought this would be it," said Rachel as they walked down Bleaker Street. She was gripping Kurt's hand tightly. "I thought he would make it this time."

Kurt bent his head so she couldn't see how wet his eyes were. "I know, Rach."

He and Rachel didn't get along very well normally, but when Finn was in trouble, their bond was thicker than blood. They walked the streets of Brooklyn until their throats were raw with calling. By seven, they had taken refuge on a park bench. Rachel cried quietly while Kurt hugged her.

"Rachel," he said. His voice sounded nothing like it usually did. "Rachel, we should warm up and get something to eat. You're going to get sick."

She nodded into his chest and he helped her up. They walked hand-in-hand to the nearest diner and each got a cup of coffee. Kurt asked the waitress for cocoa powder.

As Rachel was finishing her cup, she said, "Kurt, can you call them this time?"

He rested his head in his hand. "My dad is going to think it's my fault."

"No, he won't," said Rachel. "He won't, Kurt."

"It's like I'm not his son anymore. I abandoned him. For Malcolm." Kurt shook his head. "I'll go call. I'm going to start crying if I don't get out of here."

He went into the little doorway of the restaurant and stood so he stayed out of the wind. Then he dialed.

"Hummel Auto, this is Burt."

"Hi Dad."

"Kurt, hi. Isn't it a little early for you to be calling?"

"Dad, we—" Kurt's voice cracked and he started crying in earnest. "—we can't find Finn."

Burt was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Kurt, buddy, I'm sorry how I acted last time we talked."

"D-did you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you. Finn's missing. But you're my son and I don't want…" His voice got a little broken up, too. "I wouldn't want to lose _you_ with you thinking I'm not proud of you."

"I—I wish I could see you right now," Kurt said quietly. "I wish we were all in Lima. Rach and I can't keep doing this. It's tearing us apart."

"I wish you didn't have to grow up so fast, Bud," said Burt, and Kurt listened to the sounds of the car shop in the background. "I'll tell Carole about Finn. Make sure you call the police if he doesn't show up by tomorrow."

"I know the drill," said Kurt. "And dad? Thanks for saying…that you're proud of me."

* * *

Kurt got to the BeeBee coffee shop much later than usual that morning. Blaine smiled at him and wrote his order down without saying a word. Kurt wanted to say something, but he couldn't find the strength. When he got out his wallet to pay, Blaine shook his head.

"It's on me. You look like you've had a long morning."

It was all Kurt could do to keep from crying. He managed a small smile and then he retreated to the back of the coffee shop. When Blaine called his name, he grabbed his drink and left quickly. Then he noticed there was something extra written on his cup.

**Whatever it is, you're not alone.**

* * *

**A/N: ****Just so you don't abandon this story, I want you to know that there will be Klaine! They're my OTP so I know the grrrrrrr you feel when you see some random character with Kurt. _Grrrrrr._ **

**Thanks! Winky face ;)**


	3. Selfish

It was a story Rachel and Kurt had heard too many times. The police had located Finn near one of his drug connection's houses. He had hypothermia and dehydration and all the other things that came with sleeping outside in New York, and was in the hospital.

"I have to go Mal," Kurt said, shaking his boyfriend awake. "They found Finn."

Malcolm nodded groggily. "Want me to go with you?"

Kurt shook his head. Looking at Malcolm made his chest ache, though he didn't yet know why.

He rushed out of the door and texted Rachel until he reached the hospital. A nurse showed him to Finn's room, in which everything was white and silver, except for a single dying plant. He had arrived before Rachel. Finn's skin was pale, even his lips, and the whites of his eyes seemed yellow.

"Finn," he said breathlessly.

"Hi Little Brother," said Finn, lifting an IV-filled arm.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel-"

"Finn!" Rachel's voice broke into the room in a scream. "Finn!"

At first, Kurt thought she was going to hug Finn. He realized too late that wasn't her intention, and watched as she slammed her hands into his chest.

"How could you do this again?" she sobbed, gripping his hospital gown. "How could you? You don't know what it's like! You don't know what it's like to think the person you love is dead! You don't know!"

"Rach!" cried Kurt, trying to pull her back. "Let go of him! He's sick!"

She spun and shoved Kurt.

"Don't defend him!" she yelled. "He did it again! He did it to us again!"

"Rachel, I'm - I'm sorry!" Finn said desperately, trying to reach for her. "I'm so sorry. I just..."

"You just couldn't. I know." Her voice was gentler now. "Finn, I love you. But I can't do this anymore."

"Rachel..." Kurt said in warning.

Rachel paid no attention to him. "I want you to move back with your parents."

"Rachel!" Kurt hissed. "You can't just-"

"This is my choice, Kurt!" she shouted, facing him again. "It's mine. I'm the one living with him. I'm the one that makes sure he sleeps on his side so he doesn't die in his sleep! I'm the one who's NYADA scholarship is in jeopardy for missing another deadline!"

Kurt pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn't used to deciding fates. That was something adults did and Kurt? He was only 18. As much as wanted to grow up during high school, as much as he wanted to be alone in the sea of the world, this was too much for him. He missed his mother. He missed his father. He missed his childhood and his stable hormones and his love of swings in oak trees. And in the moment, he would have done anything to go back and to take Finn with him. Deciding fate? No, he wanted to steal it. Because lately, fate seemed written everywhere he looked, and it was written in black.

Kurt snugged the letterman jacket tighter. He had been wearing it for three days straight now.

"Finn," he said slowly. "Finn, she's right. We can't take care of you anymore. I'm losing my boyfriend. She's failing NYADA. I'm sorry."

"What's wrong with Malcolm?" Finn asked.

"This is about you, Finn!" Kurt yelled. "This is serious. You're going to die if you keep up like this."

Finn nodded at his lap. "I know. But you - Burt and my mom - they don't deserve me either."

"No, they don't," Kurt snapped. "But we can't afford rehab and you know something Finn? We're too young for this. We don't know how to handle this. You failed us, and we'll fail you. Kids don't take care of kids."

"I need you," Finn said, close to tears. "I need you both. I might die if I don't get my life together but I'll definitely die without you!"

"You're going to lose us either way!" shouted Kurt, suddenly much angrier than he expected to be. "You'll either lose us by going back to Lima, or you'll lose us here, because if you stay, we're gone!" His eyes sparkled with tears. "It's not fair, Finn! It's not fair to watch you crumble and be able to do nothing about it! Rachel's right! You don't know what it's like."

Finn balled his fists up in his blankets. "You're abandoning me."

"You abandoned us!" snarled Kurt. "_You_ abandoned _us_."

"You can't just do this." Finn's voice had grown quiet. "Please," he whispered. "Please don't send me back to Lima. I'll really change this time. I know I have a problem. I know. But I promise-"

Kurt shook his head. "No promises. Finn, I love you. But I don't trust you."

"You can't!" he yelled, sitting forward and looking wildly at Rachel. "Rachel! I-I love you! I want to marry you! I want to live the rest of my life with you!"

Rachel collapsed into a chair and covered her face.

"Don't put that on her!" said Kurt angrily. "Love's not an excuse anymore! Can't you see how you've hurt her?"

"I get it," Finn said, and the tone of his voice froze Kurt's blood. "I get it now. She never loved me. And you, you're just selfish. You can't stand the idea that your asshole boyfriend is going to leave you. So blame me. I've always been an easy target."

Kurt swallowed back tears. He heard Rachel sob once behind him.

"You're right," Kurt said bitterly. "We're the selfish ones."

He walked up to Finn and hung the letterman jacket on the bed. Rachel kissed Finn quickly on the mouth. Then Kurt put his arm around her and guided her down the hallway.

They could hear Finn's shouts echoing behind them.

* * *

Rachel stayed with Kurt that night. They couldn't sleep, so they talked on the couch with hot chocolate.

"I'm glad you were able to be so strong," Rachel said quietly, squeezing Kurt's knee. "I really needed you. I wouldn't have been able to go through with it." She smiled weakly. "That's a side of you I've never seen."

"I'm just tired of being hurt," he said.

Rachel nodded and took a long drink of cocoa. Then she frowned. "What was it you mentioned about Malcolm?"

Kurt hesitated. "He's just been...weird."

"Weird how?" asked Rachel.

"Like he's not telling me everything he should be. Like something is wrong." Kurt glanced toward the bedroom. "Maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved with someone so much older. What I said about being kids...we still are kids, Rach."

Rachel smiled sadly. "Do you love him?"

"I-" But he couldn't finish, and his eyes filled.

"Oh," Rachel said softly. "Oh, Kurt, you should be able to answer that by now."

"I know. And a couple days ago I would have said that I do." Kurt looked down. "The other day, this guy at a coffee shop started flirting we me and I flirted back. And liked flirting back. And liked him."

"Well, you can like someone when you're dating someone else," Rachel said reasonably. "It's normal to like a lot of different people. It doesn't absolutely mean your current relationship's lousy."

"Well, cheating does," Kurt said softly.

"Kurt, " Rachel said, voice low and serious. "Is Malcolm cheating on you?"

Kurt meant to say no, but the last second he said, "I can't tell."

* * *

In the morning, after another night of little sleep but in better moods, Kurt and Rachel went to the coffee shop.

"Be objective," Kurt said to Rachel as they entered. "He's cute, right?"

Rachel looked at Blaine (who was holding a blender upside down over his face to examine something) and back at Kurt. She was apparently lost for words. Kurt grinned and started to walk to the counter. Then Rachel caught his sleeve.

"Kurt, this isn't really serious between you, right?"

"No, of course not. Please don't be a killjoy."

She bit her lip. "I just don't want _you_ to be the cheater."

Kurt rolled his eyes and went up to the counter. Blaine was still fussing with the blender, and when he noticed Kurt, it fell to the floor with a crash. He blushed furiously, picked it up, and walked up to take Kurt's order.

"I didn't mean to startle you," said Kurt.

"You didn't startle me," said Blaine honestly. "You just make me nervous."

Kurt smiled, his eyes softening and opening up. "I wish I didn't make you nervous. I wouldn't want you to drop something important. Like the blender that's going to make the smoothie I'm about to order."

Blaine laughed. "No mocha?"

"Yes a mocha. But also a smoothie, for my friend. Strawberry and peach, with soymilk, three packets of splenda and exactly one dash of cinnamon."

Blaine wrote these out on two cups. Kurt's eyes brushed over the edge of Blaine's collarbone.

"I guess we've talked too much for me to keep expecting notes."

"You liked my note?" Blaine asked in astonishment, pen hovering over the cup.

"I needed it," Kurt said. "So much."

"I'd write you notes for eternity if it meant seeing you smile."

Kurt felt like he was floating in warm water. In his mind he saw himself lean across the counter and kiss Blaine softly, saw the coffee shop disappear, saw Blaine's hand running down his arm...

And he turned away without another word.

"That was a long conversation," Rachel mentioned when Kurt sat down.

"Your smoothie order is complicated," he retorted.

Blaine brought their drinks to them and retreated with an apologetic smile. Kurt almost called him back, but Malcolm's face popped up, and he decided to leave instead.

"Well, he can make smoothies," said Rachel as they walked towards NYADA. "That's a plus."

Kurt held the mocha close to his chest for warmth and didn't say anything. He said goodbye to Rachel at the entrance to NYADA and started towards Vogue. He felt sure Blaine wouldn't have written anything on his cup, but he looked anyway.

To his astonishment, there was something there.

**Sorry if that was too much. #nofilter**

Kurt laughed aloud and then glanced around to see if anyone heard him. After a moment, his lips settled on a soft smile, and he held the cup back to his chest.

* * *

Blaine hadn't slept easily in days. He wanted to say that it was not because of Kurt. Because if it was because of Kurt...that meant his feelings were bigger than he was ready for.

He had fallen in love before, and other than being a melodramatically romantic person, he tried not to take falling in love all that seriously. Falling in love was just something that happened.

Something that was happening. To him. About Kurt.

He groaned and turned over in bed. The fan was on but the room was still too warm. The city roared in his ears like the sea. There was a mouse in the wall. Or there wasn't, but _something_ was keeping him awake. He sat up and turned on the light.

Blaine was an unusually patient person. He thought processes were beautiful. He loved watching sets built, even if he never saw the productions they were used in. But there was one thing he just couldn't be patient about, and that was love.

Why couldn't he snap his fingers and wake up with Kurt next to him?

He wasn't trying to avoid the pain. He just wanted it to happen all at once, instead of over days and weeks and months.

He turned over again, and then got up and shuffled sleepily around the house. Kurt was everywhere he looked and he was overwhelmed with the need to know him. What he loved, who he loved, why he had cried over a simple note, where he grew up, what his favorite food was, whether he liked dogs, why he came to New York, what his passion was, whether he believed in himself.

It was nearly three in the morning. Blaine knew Santana was sound asleep. She'd given up on love and her sleep wasn't plagued with demons of doubt and deadly curiosity.

If he could just hold his hand for a second. A second was all he asked. A second, and he would be able to sleep.

* * *

Kurt was also awake, miles away in his Upper West Side apartment, and so was Malcolm. They had gotten into a ferocious argument about nothing, and Kurt ended up crying on the couch until Malcolm apologized, which was about twenty minutes ago. Now they were sitting at opposite ends of the living room, each drinking a cup of tea uneasily.

"Mal?" Kurt said finally.

Malcolm looked into his boyfriend's bloodshot eyes. Kurt's lips trembled.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

"Of course I—" Malcolm stopped, shocked. " –Why would you ever think I didn't love you?"

"I know you care about me," said Kurt softly. "But I want to know if you care enough to take the bad with the good. Because when the bad happens…you're never there."

"You know I don't want to get involved with your family, Kurt."

"You would want to if you loved me. If you were serious about me."

"That's not fair. Or true! I can love you and not your family."

"I'm not asking you to love them!" shouted Kurt. "I'm asking you to hold me when I'm scared for them! I'm asking you to tell me it's going to be okay!" Kurt wiped away fresh tears and decided to take a risk. "Malcolm, my _barista _told me he was there for me after what happened with Finn, and he didn't even know what was going on! He just saw I was upset."

Malcolm nodded and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Kurt, all I can tell you is _yes_, I love you, and _yes_, I'm serious about you, and all I've ever wanted to do is make you feel better, and all I want right now is for you to come over here so I can hold you and…please come over here."

Kurt looked at Malcolm warily before walking over to him. Malcolm took Kurt's hands and pulled him gently onto his lap.

"I'm sorry if I don't pay enough attention," he said as Kurt tucked himself against his chest. "I guess I took you too seriously when you said you were like a honey badger and you planned on spending most of your adult life alone."

Kurt laughed. Then he whispered, "That was on our first date. Maybe you do pay attention."

* * *

Rachel folded Finn's letterman jacket and put it on top of his suitcase. He appeared in the door of the bedroom and met her eyes, but she looked away and closed the suitcase.

She took his hand and led him out of the room. "It's time to go, Finn."

"Rachel...does me going back to Lima...does that mean you and me are over?"

Most people would have thought so, but Finn and Rachel were like water and a reflection. They had never been able to get a breakup to stick.

"If I was going to break up with you," Rachel said softly, "I would want it to be because of _you_, not your drugs. So I'm sticking by you."

"Will you visit?" he asked sheepishly.

She smiled and buckled the belt of her raspberry pink coat. "Yes. I will."

He smiled back and glanced at the clock. "Kurt's late."

"No I'm not!" rang a voice outside the window, and Finn and Rachel both jumped.

Kurt came in a second later, clutching car keys triumphantly. "I borrowed Mal's car. We don't have to take the subway."

"Oh, yes!" said Rachel. "Now we have time to stop for coffee because I'm desperate-"

"I already got us all coffee," said Kurt, gesturing to the cup in his hand. "What kind of person shows up without coffee?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "I'll just bet it's from BeeBee's."

"Yes," Kurt said tersely.

"And I'll just bet there's a secret message on the side of your cup."

(There was. It said: **_You're so cute today you made me forget what I was going to write_**_.)_

"It's not exactly secret!" said Kurt. "It's written right there!"

Rachel reached for the cup but Kurt snatched it back.

"Oh, not a secret?" teased Rachel.

Finn looked back and forth between them. "Am I missing something?"

"Kurt's having eyesex on the daily with his barista," explained Rachel.

"At least I wear contacts," snipped Kurt. "Now let's go. We're going to miss the plane."

* * *

Malcolm took a deep breath as he stepped off the floor of the stock exchange. He had worked there for nearly two years now, specializing in fashion and apparel stock. He didn't spend the majority of his time on the floor - he was usually in fashion houses, talking to the designers. And models. Mostly models.

It was how he met Kurt. They were both at a cocktail party for Vogue, and he asked Kurt which company he modeled for. Kurt told him to work on his pick up lines, and then realizing he was serious, blushed and quietly explained he was a designer, not a model. Malcolm had trouble believing Kurt was a designer, but then he heard him talking to Isabelle Wright, Vogue's new executive - and he was brilliant.

Brilliant and very fuckable.

Malcolm made his way down the hallway and into a small office that doubled as the water cooler. He poured himself a cup of coffee and added a few packets of sweetener. He was reaching for a spoon when he felt a hand on his waist.

"Free later?" said a voice, and the hand slid away. Malcolm looked up to see Alan, a model from Dolce and Gabbana who he'd noticed watching him earlier that month.

"How - how'd you know I work here?" asked Malcolm.

"You're accent is adorable," said Alan, helping himself to someone's orange juice in the fridge. "And I knew because you told me. I think it was when I left your place last time. Something about getting to work before the exchange opened." He turned around and smiled at Malcolm. "Also, just a little thing, but I totally saw your boyfriend in the hall that night. You might want to be a little bit more careful."

"Yeah, I know," said Malcolm, feeling at ease enough to laugh. "I almost said your name when the door opened. I thought you'd come back for something."

"He's cute," said Alan. "Mind if I float back and forth?"

"I don't think he'd go for you," said Malcolm. "And I want you all to myself."

"Say that again, "said Alan, "and you can have me right here in this office."

"Do you think it would make the price of Dolce and Gabanna go up?" joked Malcolm, reaching out to tug on Alan's belt loop.

"Well, you know what they say," said Alan. "All publicity's good publicity."

Malcolm grinned. "Meet me later. Kurt'll be at the airport all day."

* * *

**A/N: Let's play a game of State the Obvious! Malcolm's a dick...**

**Not that Kurt isn't flirting. Hah. Flirting. Blaine is my flirting spirit animal. **

**Let me know if the Finn/Rachel/Kurt dynamic is turning out OK! I've never written anything quite like this before. Thanks so much for any support and reviews ;)**


	4. Being Alive

**A/N: This is long and I wrote it in one sitting! I am such a workout slacker :)**

**This chapter is rated M for sex. Just sayin.**

* * *

It was snowing in Columbus when Finn's plane landed. He shuffled along a line of cars until he spotted Carole's Toyota Corolla, and heaved his luggage into the back.

"Hi Mom."

Carole smiled thinly above the brim of her bright purple scarf. "Hi Finn."

Finn shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat and toggled the heat. It was colder here than New York, and the snow was coming down fast.

"Where's Burt?" he asked as Carole pulled away from the airport.

"We thought he should stay home, that it would give us a chance to talk."

"I know I disappointed you," mumbled Finn.

"No, no, Honey," Carole said earnestly. "These things are complicated."

Finn put his hands in his pockets, and his fingers ran into a one of the cookies that Kurt and Rachel had baked him for the plane. He bit down hard on his lip to keep it from trembling.

"It's not...complicated..." said Finn. "I just screwed up." He shook his head. "It was really hard saying goodbye to Rachel but saying goodbye to Kurt...it made me realize that I had it all twisted around. I thought I was watching out for him but he's really been watching out for me and he never should have had to do that. He's my little brother."

Carole smiled softly. "He's your big brother."

"I know, but he's - but he's _Kurt_. In high school, all those times he got beat up and made fun of I was there for him and he needs me just as much in New York and I couldn't do it. I should have gotten rid of Malcolm and..."

Carole looked at her son thoughtfully as she merged onto the freeway towards Lima. "Finn, you're both adults. There's give and take."

"But he needed me in high school because he was the only out kid there. I need him because I'm a loser."

"Honey," said Carole, "I know you made some bad choices, but this is not all your fault."

Finn was quiet for a while. Finally, he said, "When I saw Burt wasn't here...I thought you were going to yell at me the whole way home."

"Finn, I'm not happy about what happened," said Carole. "I'm not happy about what happened with your father. But we're family, and we support each other."

Finn was desperate. "Why wasn't Kurt-?"

"He's not ready to handle this yet. I think the thought of losing you is too much for him after he's lost so much. And you know how ambitious he is, how he gets lost in his life and just..." Carole flapped her hands. "He's an artist. Artists don't handle real life all that well."

"Yeah," said Finn, relieved the conversation was going in another direction. "He's in way too deep with Malcolm." Then his eyes widened. "That wasn't a dirty joke, Mom, I swear."

Carole rolled her eyes. "And you don't like Malcolm?"

"He never lets Kurt go anywhere by himself and I mean, I have no idea what gay guys think about other gay guys, but apparently Kurt's kind of sexy or something..." Carole noticed her son's ears had turned bright red. "...and it's like Malcolm only has him around to show him off."

"Well, I don't know if I have any better idea about what gay men like...but Kurt's very...he is attractive, you know?" said Carole. Then she laughed. "My god, what if he could hear us? He'd probably die laughing ."

"Just an FYI," Finn said, leaning closer. "But he got a tattoo."

"No!" said Carole, in an overly-dramatic voice. "What is it?"

"He won't tell me! Or show me."

"Maybe it's...intimate."

Carole and Finn both burst out laughing. They talked about what Kurt's tattoo might be for the rest of the drive, and when they got to Lima, Carole stopped at the Lima Bean and bought Finn the largest hot chocolate they would make.

* * *

"I can't _believe _you sang _Talk Dirty_," Santana said in disgust as she and Blaine walked towards the NYADA coffee shop. "You made half the class sexually excited."

"I do that anyway," Blaine said, and Santana made a nauseated sound.

"I'm the sexual one, V-Card," she said.

"You really have to stop calling me that," Blaine replied as they walked into the coffee shop.

"Would you prefer Nympho?" she asked, shooing away a group of scared-looking first-years and sitting at their table. "Because you've brought about ten guys home since the start of the semester, and you never saw one of them more than once."

"That's why they're called one-night stands," Blaine said, unconcerned. "But you wouldn't know anything about _those _since you never sleep with anyone."

"I slept with every guy I knew in high school. I'm done."

"I'm talking about girls! You like girls!"

Santana shrugged. "The thrill is gone. I like being alone. Now go get me my coffee."

"I'm getting you laid tonight," said Blaine. "No excuses."

"I'm not sleeping with anyone until you get your act together and ask that nonfat mocha regular out."

Blaine picked up his and Santana's coffee and sat down at the table, humming _Talk Dirty_. Santana opened her mouth to say something, but then her eyes narrowed and she nodded at the door. "Great. Berry is here."

"Who?" Blaine asked, turning around and spotting the girl who had been with Kurt a few days before, the one that ordered the smoothie. He almost spat out his coffee. "I know her!"

Rachel seemed to spot Blaine at the same moment. Her eyebrows jumped, and she rushed over.

"Oh, well done Wonder Twin," Santana muttered as Rachel sat down.

"You - I - I didn't know you went to NYADA!" Rachel stuttered. "Why haven't I seen you before?"

"This is my first semester," said Blaine. "San's older than me."

"I don't know how he missed _you_, though," Santana said viciously to Rachel. "You're everywhere."

Rachel sniffed. "I don't know how you and Blaine are friends. He seems so sweet."

"We balance each other out, Berry. He keeps me from killing at random."

Rachel rolled her eyes and looked back at Blaine. "Are you going for the winter showcase? I heard Ms. Tibideaux is getting more and more selective and some _idiot_ just sang _Talk Dirty _in front of her, can you imagine?"

Santana snorted into her coffee and Blaine turned bright red.

"So, how's Kurt?" he asked, changing the subject.

"He's-"

"Hold up," said Santana. "How do you know Kurt?"

"He's my friend," Rachel said nervously. "He's my boyfriend's step-brother, and we went to high school together in Ohio."

"Kurt's from Ohio?" asked Blaine. "I'm from Westerville!"

"That's amazing!" said Rachel. "Did you go to Dalton because we competed against Dalton one year in the Showchoir Regionals and-"

"Yeah - oh my God! You were that girl! You sang - you sang something called _Get it Right_."

"Yes! That's incredible!" Rachel's smile was disturbingly huge. "You were the hunky Warbler that sang _Raise Your Glass_."

Santana opened a bottle of migraine pills and took more than a few.

"But how come I never saw Kurt?" asked Blaine. "Was he-?"

"He was - well - he missed Regionals because this bully at our school broke his arm the night before." Her smiled faded. "Gosh, sometimes life is funny. What if he met you then and...?" She sighed. "I wish he had. I'd give anything for him to leave Malcolm."

"I told you Dalton," said Santana. "I told you he'd have a boyfriend."

Blaine stared at the print on the side of his coffee cup and shrugged. Rachel looked heartbroken and at a loss for words, and for a moment they were all quiet.

"Well," Santana said finally. "This has been sufficiently awkward."

She strutted out of the NYADA coffee shop, leaving Blaine and Rachel.

"I really like you," Rachel said softly. "And Kurt really likes you."

Blaine glanced up and smiled slightly. "He has a boyfriend."

"Please don't start treating him differently just because you found out," Rachel said desperately. "He's going through a lot."

* * *

"Are you trying to make a Halloween costume?" Kurt was shouting at three terrified interns. "You can't just blindly cut fabric like that! You have to have a pattern! You can't guess!"

He threw aside a piece of tattered blue silk.

"It's completely ruined," he said. "Go find more of it, and this time, let the _designers_ do the cutting! You're supposed to help us, not do our work and screw it up."

The interns scattered like beetles disturbed under a rock. Isabelle stuck her head into Kurt's office and asked, "Bad time?"

Kurt sank into his chair and covered his face. "I need new interns."

"You could…try being nicer?" suggested Isabelle.

"I don't know how to be nicer!" he said. "They're hopeless! You gave me the three most hopeless interns in New York City!"

"I did it on purpose because I knew you could handle it," Isabelle said with a wink. "Oh, watch out for Bernadette – I noticed her eating potato chips while she was folding clothes in the design room. They might have oil spots."

Kurt grimaced. "It's a good thing I'll never get anyone pregnant, because I would not know what to do with a messy, sticky, screaming infant. I would toss it out a window."

"Noted," said Isabelle, and one of the interns came back in. It was Bernadette.

"Um, Mr. Hummel?" she squeaked. "We can't find any more blue silk."

"It's OK," said Kurt, feeling a pang at the way she said _Mr. Hummel_. "I think we put it in the storage room because we used it seasons ago." He got up. "I'll go with you."

Bernadette nodded and said, almost dreamily, "You're amazing."

Kurt's heart lifted a little and he glanced at Isabelle. "OK, maybe not out a window."

Isabelle laughed. Kurt's day was long, no surprise. He got his hair done and met Malcolm at a small restaurant near their apartment, after changing into a pair of famously tight jeans.

Malcolm was reading a wine list, and barely looked up when Kurt got there.

"Hi Hon," Kurt said, a little sharply.

"Hi, Kurt," said Malcolm, kissing Kurt quickly before looking back at the wines. "Should we get the Chianti or the-?"

"Notice anything different?" Kurt interrupted.

Malcolm looked up and struggled to name something.

"Never mind," Kurt said, annoyed. "The Chianti's fine."

"No, what is it?" asked Malcolm. "Oh! Your hair. Your hair is different."

"Well done," Kurt said moodily. "Why did we come here? You know I don't like this place."

"You didn't complain when I made the reservation." Malcolm paused. "Are you sure you're okay? Maybe you aren't sleeping enough."

"Maybe if you didn't insist on fucking me every night, I'd get more sleep."

"Oh, because I _insist_," said Malcolm. "It's not like you end up screaming your head off every time."

"Maybe I fake it," Kurt said lightly. "Like Meg Ryan in _When Harry Met Sally._" Then he added, "Do you think the chicken's any good here?"

Malcolm looked perplexed. "You don't actually fake it, right?"

"Well, you'll never know, will you?" Kurt said. "Does the chicken look good?"

"Even if you were faking it," said Malcolm, "you couldn't fake, you know, an…"

"An orgasm?" Kurt asked loudly. "No, but just because I have orgasms doesn't mean they're good ones. What if it's just mechanical? You know they built a robot that sucks you off? What if you're that robot?"

"Why are you being like this?" Malcolm asked in a low voice.

"Because you didn't notice my hair," Kurt said. "Because I had a bad day at work. Because I dropped my brother off at the airport and you didn't even ask me how it went. So really Malcolm, will you tell me if the chicken is any good?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it's fine," said Malcolm dully.

He and Kurt ate dinner in virtual silence. When they got home, Malcolm seemed subdued, and headed towards their room. But Kurt caught him in the hallway, and pressed him against the wall.

"Where are you going?" Kurt asked.

"Are you drunk?" said Malcolm. "I'm going to bed."

He tried to break away, but Kurt wouldn't let him. He ran his hand slowly up Malcolm's chest, his voice breathy and low. "Don't you want me to touch you…?"

Malcolm's breath hitched in his throat, and he looked at Kurt with something like fear.

"I'm sorry about how I acted in the restaurant…" Kurt lied softly, unzipping Malcolm's pants. "I want to make up for it."

Malcolm made an unintelligible noise as Kurt snapped the band of his boxers. "Ungh, Kurt, you-"

"Don't talk," whispered Kurt, kissing lazy circles on Malcolm's neck, his fingers inching under the boxers. "Let me talk to you."

Kurt was not usually like this unless he was stumbling-falling-fainting drunk, which he wasn't, and Malcolm should have known something was wrong. But the wicked glint in Kurt's eyes went unnoticed.

"You know…" Kurt whispered, running his palm over Malcolm's boxers, playing with the buttons, "…I'm only 18. Don't you feel bad? Keeping me all to yourself?"

"I don't feel bad when you touch me like that," said Malcolm, eyes completely lust-blown.

"Like this?" Kurt asked, tugging roughly at the base of Malcolm's cock; Malcolm jerked forward involuntarily. "I can do so much better than that…"

He took Malcolm's hands and pulled him into their bedroom. He shoved him down onto the bed and straddled him. He kissed him slowly, his tongue swirling in his mouth. He could feel Malcolm moan into his mouth, and he smirked.

"I'll let you fuck me until I split in two," he said softly, bringing his hips down so they connected with Malcolm's. "If that's what you want. Tell me what you want."

But Malcolm was a moaning mess. Kurt unbuttoned Malcolm's shirt and kissed a pattern down to his belly button, and then licked a solid stripe up between his abs. He nipped Malcolm's ear, then his neck, then kissed him, all teeth and tongue and-

"Ouch!" said Malcolm,

"Oh, sorry," Kurt whispered. "I'll try to be more gentle." He ran his tongue over Malcolm's lip where he had bitten it, and tasted a bit of blood. "Oh, I really got you there." He ran his tongue over the cut one more time, and went back to kissing Malcolm's neck. He could tell how hard Malcolm was – he must have been dying for friction by now – but he ignored it for a few more minutes.

"You make me feel like such a whore," Kurt said softly, bringing his hips down on Malcolm's again. Malcolm made a strangled sound. "Do you want me to blow you? I won't do it unless you ask me too…"

Malcolm nodded frantically, pushing Kurt down along his body. Kurt slid Malcolm's boxers off and sunk his mouth down the length of his dick, so that his nose connected with the silky hair under his navel.

"_Fuck_," mumbled Malcolm. "Oh fuck, Kurt, you're so good at that."

Kurt watched Malcolm closely, hollowing his cheeks and sucking harder. Malcolm arched his back, completely separated from reality, and reached down to run his hand through Kurt's hair. Kurt pulled up with a slight pop. He licked a stripe up the base of Malcolm's cock and cupped balls before swallowing him again. Malcolm tugged his hair in warning, but Kurt continued to suck him off until –

"_Fuck! Fuck, I'm close, Kurt…"_

Kurt pulled up just before Malcolm would have come. He wiped his mouth and hopped to his feet, not even slightly turned on, and left the room.

"You're just going to leave me like this?" Malcolm yelled after a moment. "Kurt?"

He eventually found Kurt in the kitchen, sipping a glass of wine.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded.

"I wanted some wine," Kurt said innocently.

"Right, we're going to pretend you didn't just abandon me in there," said Malcolm. "I get it."

"Abandon you?" asked Kurt. "I got bored. You have hands."

Malcolm shouted in frustration and Kurt finished his wine in one long drink.

"Get your temper under control," he said coolly.

"Don't tell me what to do," snapped Malcolm. "You're clearly a sadist."

"Maybe you're into that. I wouldn't know. You never talk to me."

"What is it, Kurt?" Malcolm asked, his blue eyes flashing. "Is your brother-?"

"Don't talk about my brother," Kurt said shortly.

"Why is your brother off limits? Are you in love with him?"

"He's off-limits because you don't know anything about him!"

"Then what? Are you having an affair?"

"You're imagining things," Kurt said coldly, and he walked back to bed without another word.

* * *

The next morning dawned cold and snowy, and once again, Blaine was chilled to the bone by the time he got inside the coffee shop. Wes was already there, wiping down the countertops and whistling _New York, New York._

"Can we tone down the Sinatra?" Blaine said irritably. "I have a hangover."

"Considering I'm your superior, you probably shouldn't tell me that." Wes grinned and threw a bleach-soaked rag at him. "You just earned yourself counter duty."

Blaine scowled, reached for an apron, and started wiping down the counter.

"There's Open Mic tonight, so plan on staying late," mentioned Wes.

Blaine glanced up. "Open Mic? We do that here?"

"Yes. Why do you sound _eager_?"

"I could get Kurt to come. I could sing something for him."

"Oh, like he won't run as fast as his skinny legs can carry him when he hears your voice."

"I'm a singer, Wes. I go to NYADA."

"Oh," he said blankly. "You never mentioned that before. But still, think about what you're doing. If you sing a love song, he'll probably pee himself in terror."

Blaine wrinkled his nose. "Why would I listen to you?"

"I was on a Show Choir Board in high school," supplied Wes. "And I led my school to victory three years in a row." He paused for a minute, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. "You really like this guy?"

Blaine nodded. "I really do."

"Then you're in luck," said Wes, grinning obnoxiously. "I'll help you pick a song."

When Kurt came in for coffee that morning, the shop was too busy to talk to him, so Blaine just wrote _**Open Mic tonight, 8 pm **_on his cup. He glanced at it and grinned at Blaine as he was leaving.

* * *

Kurt knocked on Rachel's door at 6:30 with a bouquet of sunflowers and a giddy smile on his lips. She opened it, looking grumpy.

"Kurt, what's—?"

"I'm taking you on a friend-date," he said cheerfully, handing her the flowers. "We're gonna go to my coffee shop, and sing in their open mic, and get drinks, and it'll be fun."

Rachel's face remained as stony as ever. "Is this about Blaine?"

"This is not about Blaine," he said. "It's about you. You're my friend, and Finn's gone, and I figured we should do something."

"You're using this as a cover for seeing Blaine, aren't you?"

Kurt sighed. "Yes. Okay?"

Rachel shook her head firmly. "Kurt, there's something you should know."

"Okaaay," he said in a high voice. "This is clearly about to turn into a Taylor Swift video, so I'll be going…"

"Kurt, wait!" shouted Rachel.

Kurt turned around and folded his arms. "What?"

"You should know…that you can't even show a little interest without this becoming serious."

"Why? This is fun, it's flirtatious, and that's all it is."

"No, it isn't," Rachel sighed. "Kurt, I talked to Blaine today. He goes to NYADA too and I saw him and we talked and….I think he loves you."

Kurt's eyes became noticeably clear, and he bit his lip. "He doesn't love me. We just flirt."

Rachel kept shaking her head. "He's…he's too sweet. And he's too earnest. It's not just flirting, because apparently he's quite the flirt and this is different."

"I'm getting cold," snipped Kurt, coming inside and shutting the door. "I didn't expect you to attack my relationship choices." Then he sighed. "I'm sorry, Rach. It's just – me and Malcolm – I'm turning into a monster because of him."

"What happened?" Rachel asked, but Kurt shook his head.

"I'll tell you what I did after we've had some drinks. Yes, it's that bad," he added when Rachel raised her eyebrows. "But please come to open mic with me. I can't go alone, and you have a beautiful voice, and it'll be fun."

Rachel agreed when she noticed the warning sparkle in Kurt's eyes. She even gave him the opportunity to pick out her outfit.

They were in Manhattan by 7:30. Rachel was wearing a beautiful caramel colored sweater-dress, her hair tumbling out of a beret in a thousand curls. Kurt, meanwhile, was more dressed down than he was used to, wearing a light blue collared shirt and a soft leather jacket. He and Rachel walked to the coffee shop holding hands, something they did when they needed extra courage.

"Do you think we're passing for a couple right now?" joked Kurt.

"No," replied Rachel. "You've been humming Sondheim this whole time."

Kurt laughed. "You know, we used to _hate_ each other."

"I remember," she said. "I seriously considered arranging an accident in which a metal pipe would have smashed your vocal cords." She paused. "I know you didn't get into NYADA, but you're a really excellent singer, Kurt. You should sing more often."

"Have you heard Blaine sing?" Kurt asked, sounding nervous.

"No," said Rachel. "But I've heard he's very good."

"Do you think he'll sing tonight?" Kurt wondered, voice even quieter.

"Well, he invited you, so I think so," Rachel said reasonably.

They didn't talk the rest of the way to the coffee shop. When they got there, it was alive with activity. There was a table of hot coffee and cocoa set up, and also a table with a seemingly endless supply of alcoholic drinks.

"Thank _Jesus_," said Kurt dramatically, showing the bartender his fake I.D. and gulping down a martini. Rachel settled herself into a comfortable chair, watching Kurt apprehensively, when Santana sat down next to her.

"Hello Berry," she said scathingly.

"Lopez," returned Rachel, crossing her legs tightly.

Neither girl spoke until Kurt came and sat down. He looked at Santana in confusion.

"Um, Rach," he said, "who's this?"

"I'm Blaine's roommate," said Santana, extending a hand and shaking Kurt's. "You must be Lady Lips."

"I'm Kurt," said Kurt unsurely.

"Yes, but Blaine is infatuated with you, so I've had to come up with a variety of rude nicknames," Santana explained. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get drunk."

She got up, stretching long bare legs, and walked to the drink table. Kurt and Rachel exchanged a look, and Santana came back with two glasses. She handed one to Kurt.

"It's a triple vodka with orange and cranberry juice," she said.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" asked Kurt.

"So you can go home with Blaine and have loud sex until four in the morning? No, I'm not."

"I only ever have loud sex until three in the morning," quipped Kurt, and Santana grinned.

"Besides," said Rachel, "you can't get Kurt drunk."

Santana snorted. "Right. What does he weigh? Ninety pounds?"

"You'll see," said Rachel. "He only ever gets tipsy."

"OK, Strawberry Short Cake," said Santana. "You and I are going to have a little competition. First one to ten shots wins."

"Deal," said Kurt, and they raised their glasses and drank.

The atmosphere in the coffee shop was different at night. It was warmer and louder, and the light reflected on the walls as if there was a fire. The sounds of amps and music stands scraping rang through the voices, and every breath smelled like coffee and wine.

Kurt looked up from a long drink and noticed Blaine tuning a guitar in the corner of the shop. He watched him for a long time, especially his hands as they checked strings and turned dials. A strange sensation ran through him, and in his slightly intoxicated state, he pictured millions of bluebirds flying through his veins like they were train tunnels.

"I will beat you, Lopez," Kurt said suddenly. "But you'll have to wait until after I sing for me to drink any more than this."

"Your choice," said Santana, already a little sloppy. "I sound perfect drunk or otherwise."

"Kurt, will you tell me what happened with Malcolm?" Rachel asked, remembering.

Kurt nodded and set down his drink. "He took me out to dinner last night and didn't ask me anything about my day, and I got annoyed, so I talked really loudly about sex…it was almost as bad as the scene in _When Harry Met Sally_. And then, we went home and I started to give him a blowjob—"

"Kurt, TMI," sighed Rachel.

"—_blowjob_," he repeated. "Don't act so scandalized. We've all done it. And I got him right up to the point where he would have come, and then I walked away and had a glass of wine by myself. It was a moment of pure delicious evil."

Santana had tears of laughter in her eyes. Rachel looked at Kurt in horror.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"He told me I was a psychopath," said Kurt. "I feel as bad as I can feel, Rach, so don't lecture me."

"You _are_ a psychopath!" said Santana, trying to stop laughing. "How could you do that to him? You forced him to _edge_."

"Edge?" asked Kurt.

"Edging!" exclaimed Santana. "Like in _Orange is the New Black_? Oh my God, is no one getting this?"

Just then, Blaine's voice sounded through the coffee shop. "We're ready to start in a few minutes, so if there are any last minute drink requests, please take care of that now. The first act will be Santana Lopez. She's pretty great, so give her all your love."

"Shit," whispered Santana, getting up and making her way through the crowd.

Kurt glanced at Rachel, who was still giving him the cold shoulder for his behavior with Malcolm, and then at the front of the coffee shop where a small stage had been assembled. Blaine was there, looking sweet in a white collared shirt.

Kurt hurried to get a cup of coffee, and sat down just in time for Santana to take the mic.

"Hello!" she called. "I didn't want to sing tonight, but my roommate inspired me. I'm a cold-hearted bitch, but if there's anyone I love, it's him. And this song makes me think of him and all of his wildly unrealistic love interests."

She pulled Blaine onstage and shoved a guitar into his hands. She whispered the song title into his ear, and he rolled his eyes and began to play.

"_Daydreamer, sitting on the sea__t__, _

_soaking up the sun._

_He is a real lover _

_of making up the past  
And feeling up his guy like he's never felt his figure before…"_

Santana's voice was, as intoxicated as she was, beautiful. Sweet, airy, smoky…and her song choice was so _Blaine_ that it nearly made Kurt cry.

"_Daydreamer, with eyes that make you melt__,__  
He lends his coat for shelter plus he's there for you  
When he shouldn't be__.__  
But he stays all the same, waits for you, then sees you through.__  
There's no way I could describe him__  
What I say is just what I'm hoping for__…"_

Kurt met Blaine's eyes and Blaine smiled unthinkingly.

"_And I can tell that he'll be there for life__.__  
I can tell that he'll be there for life…"_

Santana walked off stage to riotous applause, and Blaine cleared his throat. He read off a new name, and another girl got on stage to perform. Several more people performed after her, and Santana was on her eighth drink by the time Kurt had worked up his courage to perform. Meanwhile backstage, Blaine was having a panic attack.

"I can't do it, Wes, I can't," he was saying. "It's a love song, I _cannot_ sing a love song to him. Not yet."

"We went over this!" yelled Wes. "We found the perfect song!"

"It's just…_such_…a love song. There's no mistaking it for you know, a _friendship_ song."

"Do you want to be friends with him?"

"No."

"Are you a frightened little boy?"

"Yes."

Wes slapped him. "No! You are Blaine Anderson, damn it, and you are singing him a love song. This is your chance, maybe your only chance, and-"

Kurt appeared in the doorway and Blaine and Wes fell silent.

"Um, I wanted to sing something," Kurt said quietly. "Can I sing next?"

Blaine stared. "You sing?"

"I was actually a finalist at NYADA, but it didn't work out," Kurt said with a small smile. "Would it be okay if I sang?"

"Of course," said Blaine. "Yeah."

Kurt followed Blaine onstage, and Blaine introduced him. Kurt sat down at the piano and took two deep breaths.

He knew the song by heart, but he was singing it _about_ someone now, and that was something he had never done. He wasn't sure the words would come out until he was already singing.

"_Someone to hold me too close.  
Someone to hurt me too deep.  
Someone to sit in my chair,  
And ruin my sleep,  
And make me aware,  
Of being alive.  
Being alive…"_

"Oh my God," Rachel whispered to no one in particular. "I've never heard him sing like that."

She was hypnotized by Kurt, who until now, she had seen as a lost, confused and desperate boy. She was watching him grow up in the space of a moment, and was spellbound with pain and joy and loss and growth and _Kurt_, who she realized was, and maybe had always been, her greatest friend…

Across the room, Blaine was also mesmerized by Kurt's voice, which was undoubtedly the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, something he knew his life would feel incomplete without…but he also was dumbfounded. All day, he had expected to be the one singing, the one that would have to say the first words…and here was Kurt, singing a song that expressed everything for them both.

_"But alone,  
Is alone,  
Not alive..."  
_

It made him love Kurt even more than he already did. Because it _had_ always been love. The only thing that had changed was that he was no longer afraid of it.

_"Somebody crowd me with love.  
Somebody force me to care.  
Somebody let me come through,  
I'll always be there,  
As frightened as you,  
To help us survive..."  
_

Kurt's eyes were completely closed now.

_"Being alive.  
Being alive.  
Being alive."_

He opened his eyes and looked around the coffee shop, realizing he had forgotten it. The sound of clapping hit him in a wave, rising and rising until it was deafening, and then there was Blaine, staring at him with his hand over his mouth.

Kurt left the stage quietly, and by the time he had reached his seat, Blaine had replaced him in front of the microphone. The crowd was talking animatedly, everyone pleasantly drunk and caffeinated. Rachel threw her arms around Kurt when he sat down.

"Kurt, that was the most beautiful song, I had no idea your voice was so…"

Kurt's eyes filled with tears. "It was good?"

"It was incredible," she answered, and they beamed at each other.

"Hi again!" called Blaine, and the crowd quieted down somewhat. "Our next performer will be…me. I just want to express that this song is for someone I care about very much and that I mean every word."

He sat down at the piano and began to sing.

"_What would I do without your smart mouth?  
Drawing me in, and you kicking me out.  
You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down.  
What's going on in that beautiful mind?  
I'm on your magical mystery ride.  
And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright…"_

Kurt looked at Rachel, needing a life raft, a floating door, anything to hold onto so he didn't slip under.

_"Cause all of me  
Loves all of you.  
Love your curves and all your edges  
All your perfect imperfections.  
Give your all to me  
I'll give my all to you.  
You're my end and my beginning.  
Even when I lose I'm winning.  
'Cause I give you all of me  
And you give me all of you, oh…"_

Blaine's voice was strong and beautiful, and Kurt was held completely motionless. _I give you all of me…and you give me all of you_. He let his tears fall onto his lips, tumble over his collarbone. He couldn't move to wipe them away.

"_How many times do I have to tell you?  
Even when you're crying you're beautiful too.  
The world is beating you down, I'm around through every mood.  
You're my downfall, you're my muse,  
My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues.  
I can't stop singing, it's ringing, in my head for you…"_

Was it strange that Blaine understood Kurt perfectly, though they barely knew each other? Was it dangerous? Kurt wasn't sure. He had always thought of this song as a song for a love that was years-strong, but somehow, it made sense to him, as though they had already experienced those years together, or that they were just about to.

When Blaine finished singing, he walked off stage as quietly as Kurt had. Wes closed up Open Mic and sent everyone home. Santana sought Blaine out –she smelled strongly of whiskey – and he found a soft place for her to lie down. Blaine could see Kurt waiting near the door. By midnight, everyone was gone except for Kurt and Wes. Blaine took up a broom and began to sweep the floor, and Wes left as quickly as he could. Santana was snoring on a pile of burlap.

Kurt gathered as many cups as he could carry, and took them to the counter.

"I thought I would help you clean up…" he said quietly, one cup still hanging off his fingers. "You sang really beautifully tonight."

Blaine set his broom aside, and Kurt came around the counter, so they were only feet apart.

"You sang beautifully, too," said Blaine.

They smiled at each other. Kurt looked at his feet and, whether it was because of the alcohol or the hour, he started to cry. He held onto his cup like a rosary and just sobbed. Blaine stared at him for a moment, and then hugged him gently. Kurt gripped him as hard as he could in return.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't want to cry. I j-just feel like I have a second chance. I thought everything was o-over. My b-brother almost died last week, and I think my boyfriend's ch-cheating on me, but now you're here and…"

Blaine rubbed Kurt's back. "Kurt…it's okay…it's going to be okay."

Kurt sniffled and brought his hands down so they were holding Blaine's. He still had the cup in his hand, so Blaine took it from him and set it on the counter. They pulled back from each other and their eyes met, hazel and glasz.

"I want to kiss you," Kurt said quietly. "I want to do everything with you. But I have to go break up with my boyfriend. I want to do this right."

Blaine nodded and they let go of each other reluctantly.

" I'll come back," said Kurt. "I promise I will."

* * *

Kurt sprinted all the way to his apartment, ignoring the ice and disgruntled walkers. He sprang up the stairs to the door, and his fingers flying and miscalculating, dropped the keys twice before he was able to go inside. Most of the lights were on, which was unusual for this time of night, but he ignored it. He was high with emotion and absolutely determined to reach Blaine again. He strode across the apartment to the bedroom, flung open the door and –

Malcolm was straddling a young man; they were both naked, moving against each other, moaning loudly when the sound wasn't swallowed by kisses. The room was dark, but Kurt could see well enough not to mistake anything.

He made an involuntary noise, and Malcolm and the man jumped away from each other as quickly as they could.

"Kurt!" shouted Malcolm, looking around wildly. "I—"

"Sorry," said the other man. Kurt recognized him as the one he passed in the hall weeks ago. "We didn't think you would be home."

"Just – just leave," Kurt said to the other young man, as calmly as he could manage.

Alan pulled on pants, gathered his other clothing in his arms and nearly ran out of the apartment. Kurt tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. He felt like all his blood had pooled in his stomach and thought he would throw up if he tried to speak.

Malcolm was babbling and pulling on pieces of clothing. "Kurt, this – this isn't – he doesn't – he doesn't mean a thing to me."

"You should leave before one of us does something stupid," Kurt said.

"Kurt, please—"

Malcolm's voice broke and Kurt's eyes filled with tears. He knew he'd lost his chance to stay strong, and he began to cry violently.

"Get out!" he screamed at Malcolm.

"This is my house!" Malcolm shouted. "I don't have anywhere else to sleep!"

"Neither do I!"

"I'll sleep on the couch," said Malcolm, like he was being generous.

He went towards the living room. Kurt felt like his brain was spilling slowly out of his ears. He couldn't bear to look at his boyfriend, his shoulders bright with sweat from having sex with someone else, kissing someone else, things he was only suppose to do with Kurt…things they would never have again…

He had been so ready to give up Malcolm. If he hadn't walked in on him and Alan, he would have broken up with him and gone back to Blaine. It would have been clean. It would have been simple. But after seeing Malcolm with someone else, all he could think of was loss.

Though love was nearly the last thing on Kurt's mind, it was still present, still causing chaos. He _had_ loved Malcolm once, and jealousy….

Jealousy burnt every other emotion to fine white powder.

The moment Malcolm disappeared into the living, Kurt ran to the bathroom. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up, clinging to the cold porcelain and eventually sobbing on the floor. He cried until he was saturated in salty liquid. He kept wiping his eyes. He kept trying to breathe. But his tears wouldn't let up.

It had been two hours since he had seen Blaine, and what he felt was too much for him to understand. He only knew that it hurt.

* * *

A mile away, Blaine watched a new winter storm move in. Santana was asleep behind him, and he had finished two cups of coffee waiting for Kurt. He felt like a doctor…one more breath…one more shock…one more…one more. He wasn't ready to admit his patient had died.

It was hard, but it was also simple. Kurt had broken his promise.

* * *

**A/N: So I KNOW everyone was hoping for a kiss, but I had to do things this way for plot reasons…sigh. And everyone was also probably hoping for Kurt to completely end things with Malcolm, but again, plot reasons!**

**The next chapter will be mostly Finn-related.**

**And a question: Did anybody else stop watching Season 5 after a while because it was so bad, only to realize that Season 5 has the first real Klaine makeout sesh? And other good Klaine things? Like make-up sex? And cronuts? There was a lot of Klaine and I missed out on all of it!**

**Songs for this chapter were:**

_**Daydreamer **_**by Adele.**

_**Being Alive**_** by Steven Sondheim (Company) which Kurt sang in Swan Song, S4E9. **

_**All of Me**_** by John Legend, which Blaine sang in The Untitled Rachel Berry Project, S5E20. **

**As ever, I'm a review whore. **


	5. Hope and Other Drugs

He didn't know how to describe it other than _it just happens_. Urges came over him for no reason, like his brain was a giant spinning wheel that landed on heroin simply by chance, and when that's where it landed, there was nothing he could do but give in.

He looked around the dusky warehouse – how had he gotten there? – and wrapped his fleece jacket more tightly around himself. It seemed impossible that only three days earlier, Burt had offered him a job.

"Part time, you know," said Burt, biting into a grilled-cheese sandwich. "But you need something to do while you're here. Would you like to?"

Finn was speechless. "Work for you? At the shop?"

They were sitting at the small dining room table in the Hummel-Hudson residence, and it was snowing softly outside. A smile spread over Finn's lips. "Yeah, I'd do anything."

Burt nodded. "Great. Now that that's done, tell me about your brother."

Finn had expected Burt and Carole to be much more concerned about him than they were, but he wasn't complaining. He had never liked talking about himself. Besides, Burt would be better off contemplating how he would kill Malcolm than he would be considering the various ways Finn could mess up.

Both had endless possibilities, but the image of a floating and bloated Malcolm was more pleasing than the image of an embarrassed and apologizing Finn.

Finn was able to see his favorite high school teacher, Mr. Shue, and his wife Emma, who was bouncy and pregnant and able to give Finn good advice about his problems. He also met up with his high school best friend, Noah Puckerman, for lunch and bowling. They even walked around McKinley, remembering it.

But other than these brief trips back in time, Finn was alone in Lima. His current life was Rachel and Kurt, and he hadn't heard from either of them since he left. It had only been a day, but he expected a call at least. When he tried calling Kurt, he didn't pick up. He had even gotten desperate enough to call Malcolm, but Malcolm insisted he didn't know where Kurt was, and hung up almost at once.

Finn could sense things changing without him, and it hurt more than he thought it would.

He knew Kurt and Rachel loved him. But understanding wasn't the same thing as love, and he had always felt life was about being understood. When someone understood him, his life was bearable.

Love was so _easy_. No one asked for it. No one had to try for it. It was just something that happened, a curse, a blessing. Relationships didn't fail because of a lack of love. Love seemed to exist even in the worst relationships. No. Relationships failed because no one bothered to understand each other. The only person who Finn felt understood him was Rachel, and he was scared he would never see her again.

Burt finished eating his grilled cheese, got up and smacked Finn on the shoulder.

"You'll start the job tomorrow," he said. "And thanks for being so open about Kurt. I worry about that kid."

* * *

Kurt had never been arrested. He had never been yelled at, at least not by an authority figure, and though mall security once watched him with eagle eyes while he was in Nordstrom (because that tie was _his _goddamn it and not that other bitch's) nothing had ever come to pass. Which was why he was surprised to find himself being dragged towards the door by two intimidating security guards.

The choices that led to this had begun that morning. It was still dark when he woke up, and he thought it was early. Then he realized he was lying on the bathroom floor and that no light, if there had been any, could have come in.

He sat up and wiped his face with his hands. He felt utterly drained of emotion, plain as yogurt. People liked to insist that feeling pain was better than feeling nothing, but nothing was just _nothing_. It wasn't worse or better than anything. It was a state of complete indifference, like waking sleep.

Kurt got to his feet and looked in the mirror. His usually clear skin was gray and slack, and his eyes were like dead salt pools. He ran his hands through his hair and shrugged off the feeling of sleep. Then he walked into the bedroom and past the tangled sheets.

He let his body lead him through the motions. Finding the suitcase, packing the clothes, collecting all the little items that were indefinably his, and walking out of the door. Malcolm shouted at him the whole time, and he couldn't hear a word.

Kurt knew the indifference would only last so long. By the time he reached W. 81st Street, he had collapsed onto a bench, crying like he was hearing voices. But it wasn't just a grief kind of crying, and it wasn't just a relief kind of crying. It was just glorious _crying_, the first real crying he'd done in years.

He eventually got to his feet, a vision of insanity as he dragged his suitcase down Fifth Avenue. He prayed no one from work saw him – though work seemed pretty irrelevant at the moment – and eventually got on the subway. The word _homicidal_ did not begin to describe the looks he got when he heaved his 80 pound bag on behind him.

Rachel was happy to have him stay with her. She even called Malcolm a filthy word, something the Rachel Berry Kurt knew and loved would never have done, and this satisfied both of them.

It wasn't until he was halfway through a cup of coffee with her that the real trouble began, and considering he had just sent his step-brother away and walked in on his boyfriend screwing another guy, what he thought of as _real trouble _may have been somewhat off the mark.

"Oh my God," he said suddenly, coffee crashing to the floor. "Blaine."

They were standing in Rachel's kitchen, and Rachel had been telling Kurt about MAC's new lipstick. She didn't seem pleased by the interruption.

"Kurt!" she cried, dancing around the coffee as it crept towards her. "KURT!"

"Blaine," Kurt repeated, ignoring the coffee that was seeping into his shoes. "I completely forgot, I just, I just _forgot_ and he was, he's going, he's…"

"Kurt, what's going on?" demanded Rachel, reaching for a roll of paper towels.

"Last night, we…"

Rachel lifted an eyebrow. "After Open Mic? You said you went home."

"You know how you can have sex with someone without actually having sex?" he asked urgently. "Like emotional sex?"

"No, not rea—"

"Well, we had emotional sex!" Kurt said, his voice at its highest and most deranged. "We talked and I promised him I would come back, but then I found Malcolm and everything slipped away, and he was left at the coffee shop! He was probably there all night, hoping I'd been mugged because no other excuse would be enough!"

Rachel fought an impulse to smile. Kurt could be so cinematic that sometimes it was hard to keep his feelings in mind.

"Look, Kurt," she said finally, "whatever you said to him, he'll understand. You went home to break it off with Malcolm and found him…"

"Getting to fifth base with Alan, yeah," huffed Kurt.

"That's fifth base?" asked Rachel in wonder. Then she shook her head. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that Blaine will understand what happened."

Kurt looked up, and his eyes were suddenly hurt and desperate. "You think so?"

"Of course," said Rachel, adding, "He's probably at NYADA right now, if you want to go and talk to him."

Kurt's eyes flashed wide-open and he looked at his watch. "I can make it if I run."

"Go!" said Rachel, pushing him out of the kitchen. "I'll clean up the coffee!"

"You're my hero, Rach!" said Kurt, pulling on a jacket and sprinting towards the nearest subway station. The ride to Manhattan seemed short, Kurt's mind fluctuating between _good idea, bad idea_, and it seemed only minutes later when he walked into NYADA, snow in his hair and his eyes bright with adrenaline. He was not the same person he had been that morning, so subdued and hopeless, and he saw now that the difference was Blaine. Blaine was the first person he had ever met that was worth the risk and stupidity and madness of falling in love.

Kurt ran through the halls, trying to spot Blaine, but he was nowhere to be found. He spoke to several students – one of them asked him if he was homeless and looking for a place to shower – and eventually ended up back in the windowed hall where he had started. He was out of breath, but still determined, and just when he saw someone who might have been Blaine, a voice stopped him.

"Kurt Hummel."

It wasn't a question. Kurt turned and found himself face-to-face with Carmen Tibideaux, a tall and intimidating black woman with small, sparkling eyes. She was larger-than-life in a purple dress, and holding a clipboard, exactly as she had been when Kurt auditioned more than a year ago.

"Good morning, Ms. Tibideaux," said Kurt in his smallest voice.

"I hear you've been running around my halls uninvited," she said coldly. "This building and these grounds are for NYADA students only, and I think you'll remember, but you are not a NYADA student, Mr. Hummel."

"I know, but my friend – I have to talk to my friend."

"If you're talking about Ms. Berry, she does not have any classes today."

"No, not Rachel," Kurt said, trying to keep the bite out of his voice. "I just saw her. It's someone else, and it's important. If you could just tell me where Blaine Anderson is—"

"Your personal affairs with Mr. Anderson should be carried on off school grounds, Mr. Hummel," said Ms. Tibideaux, and Kurt bristled at her repeated use of _Mr. Hummel_. "It seems this year of rejection hasn't been too kind to you. You look like you could use some sleep and a hot cup of tea. I'm sure Mr. Anderson would be more than willing to talk to you, later and away from campus, after you've cleaned up."

She began to walk away.

"You don't know anything about Blaine!" Kurt yelled after her, and she turned with an eyebrow raised to the ceiling.

"I would be very careful, Mr. Hummel," she said calmly.

But Kurt was not one to be careful if someone touched a nerve. As unthreatening as he came off, he was fiercely protective of the people he loved and he knew how to stand up for himself. So it came with loss and pain. The McKinley football team made sure he knew that, but a broken arm hadn't stopped him, and neither would Carmen Tibideaux.

"And you don't know anything about me!" he went on. "You are a swollen-headed, self-satisfied bitchwho talks a lot about passion and individuality but doesn't have a clue what they actually mean! You're so caught up in perfecting NYADA that you've forgotten that there are real lives going on outside the school walls, lives that mean something to your students!" Kurt took a breath and spat, "How's _that_ for a lack of emotional depth?"

Madame Tibideaux signaled to two bulky security guards, who grabbed Kurt around the arms and hauled him backwards. The numerous students in the hall had all halted their conversations to watch.

"How strong is your school, really, if you're this worried about a disheveled nineteen-year-old who was only here to admit he made a mistake?" shouted Kurt after Ms. Tibideaux's retreating figure. "Is the school so fragile that one scared teenager is going to cause it to fall down around you?" He tried to fight of the guards, but they only tightened their grips painfully. They were almost to the exit, and in a last attempt, Kurt yelled, "You're a coward!"

Madame Tibideaux spun like she had been stung by a bee. She gazed at Kurt, her mouth slightly open; it was the first time he, or anyone, had seen her look surprised. She opened her mouth to speak, but in her moment of hesitation, another voice filled the hall.

"Kurt?"

It was Blaine. He was standing in the doorway, clutching a microbiology textbook and looking just as exhausted as Kurt. But he was smiling, and the smile wasn't a confused one, or a desperate one – it was just a smile, and it brought Kurt back to life.

"Blaine," he breathed.

"OUT." Carmen's voice broke through the air. She waved her hands at the guards and they continued to drag Kurt. "And you, Mr. Anderson—"

Blaine tensed up and looked her direction.

"Please accompany your boyfriend and sort out your problems before we suffer any more unpleasant interruptions."

The sly smile that Carmen Tibideaux wore as she walked away would remain unknown to Kurt, who was still struggling with the security guards.

"C'mon," Blaine said as he caught up with them, "he's not hurting anyone. We'll leave, I promise. Just let him go."

But they insisted on taking Kurt all the way to the curb, and shoving him so that he fell onto the ice and snow. Kurt registered a slight stinging in his palms, noticed his eyes watering, and then he felt Blaine pull him to his feet. They looked at each other.

"Blaine, I'm so sorry," Kurt whispered. "I meant to come back but—"

Blaine stopped Kurt's words by kissing him fiercely. Kurt's eyes flew open, and then he put his hands on either side of Blaine's face and kissed him back just as passionately. They swayed slightly on the spot, feeling the kiss to their toes, and Kurt pulled back to gasp when Blaine's hand found the small of his back.

"You don't hate me?" he asked.

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Of course not. I did hate you, all night, and all morning, but you just got bodily removed from NYADA on my behalf. It was pretty romantic."

"But I—"

"You didn't show up," said Blaine. "So what. I'm sure you had a good reason. I hope it's alright that I kissed you," he added. "I figured…"

"Well," Kurt said brightly, "walking in on your boyfriend fucking someone else does have a way of wrapping things up."

Blaine's smile vanished. "What? That's what happened?"

"It's okay," said Kurt.

"No, it's not," Blaine said softly. "Kurt, I'm so sorry."

Kurt sniffled and shrugged. Then he laughed. "I should have known. He was around models constantly."

"Models?" asked Blaine.

"We're both in fashion," Kurt explained. "It's how we met. He's an investor for some of the major fashion houses in New York, and I'm an editor at Vogue, and he's …he's always loved models. He thought I was a model." Kurt laughed again and wiped his eyes. "Well, fuck him. It's over."

Blaine grinned. "I'll try not to act too pleased about it."

"So," said Kurt, glancing at Blaine's book. "Microbiology?"

"Yeah," he said. "If I can't make it in music, I want to be a doctor. They don't teach any of that stuff at NYADA, so I study it on my own."

"Mm, you were a nerd in high school, weren't you?" asked Kurt.

Blaine laughed. "The biggest." Then he paused. "Want to go get some coffee?"

"Definitely," said Kurt, and then he looked down at himself. "I look like a wet cat."

"You look like you had a rough night, that's all," said Blaine. "It's devil-may-care. And kind of sexy. All you need is a cigarette and you'd be James Dean."

"I _do_ need a cigarette after a kiss like that."

Blaine grinned and took Kurt's hand. "C'mon. I know the perfect place. For coffee that is. Not cigarettes."

Five minutes later, they walked into the BeeBee coffee shop. It wasn't too busy, and Wes spotted them immediately.

"Just ignore Wes," Blaine advised. "By the time we get out of here, he'll have made fifty sex jokes."

"Speaking of sex jokes," said Kurt, "how's Santana?"

"More hungover than she's ever been," replied Blaine. "Oh, and she may or may not have told me the blowjob story."

Kurt looked at Blaine in horror. Then he started to laugh, and he couldn't stop. He seemed incapable of feeling shame or embarrassment in front of Blaine; he felt completely comfortable, completely whole.

"I want you to know," he said, hiccupping back to reality, "that I usually don't do that."

"Give blowjobs?" asked Blaine, grinning

"No, give blowjobs like _that_," replied Kurt. "I am a blowjob wizard, thank you very much."

Blaine raised an eyebrow and then they both burst out laughing.

Wes, as promised, delivered a flawless pun that made use of the phrase _daily grind_. Kurt and Blaine found a warm nook in the coffee shop, and were still laughing by the time they sat down.

"I feel like I'm back at Dalton," said Blaine, adding, "my high school. It was a private boys' school."

"I see," said Kurt, biting back a giggle. "Why did you go to a private school?"

"I got taunted at public school," said Blaine. "And my parent's didn't want to hear me complain so much, so they transferred me."

"It wasn't because they didn't want to see you get hurt?" asked Kurt.

Blaine shook his head. "They don't believe in my, let's see, lifestyle choices."

"I'm sorry," said Kurt earnestly. "I don't know what I'd do if my family didn't support me, because high school was…it was a battle every single day. I was the _only_ out kid at my school for all four years."

"Dalton was full of gay guys," said Blaine. "It made it a lot easier. That and their zero-tolerance bullying policy."

"Every school should have one of those," said Kurt. Then he squinted. "Dalton? You're not talking about the Dalton in Westerville, Ohio?"

"Oh, I completely forgot! Rachel told me all about how you went to school in Lima, and competed against Dalton at Show Choir Regionals! Unbelievable, isn't it?"

"Yes," Kurt said flatly. "I could have met you years ago? I would have given anything to meet you in high school."

Blaine smiled. "That's really sweet."

"I mean it," said Kurt, looking down. "High school was really bad for me. The football team broke my arm, twice. And I don't know how my face survived. I've been hit in the face so much. It's hard to describe how many times I've been hit in the face."

Blaine reached out and gently touched Kurt's face, running his thumb over his nose and cheekbones, then down his jaw. Tears collected in Kurt's eyes and tumbled over his lips as he looked into Blaine's eyes. It was strange, but he felt intimately connected to Blaine the moment he saw him, and the fact that they hadn't been physically intimate didn't seem to matter much. They understood each other, accepted each other. Kurt also thought it was strange that the intimacy didn't scare him. He was sure it would. The idea of opening himself up to someone, someone who could so easily expose him and throw him away, was terrifying. He hadn't actually been intimate with Malcolm, he realized. He used sex as a way to avoid intimacy, and he was always nervous – nervous that Malcolm would see him without his hair done, that Malcolm would ask him a question he didn't have an intelligent answer to, that his family would be too much for Malcolm to handle, and they were. But the idea of being close to Blaine wasn't terrifying. It was reassuring.

Maybe he had gone through enough to deserve someone he could love fearlessly.

He sniffled. "I want to tell you something," he said, and looked up into Blaine's eyes. "I come with a lot of baggage. A lot."

Blaine nodded, but Kurt shook his head. "You need to understand," he said softly. "You need to really understand."

"I do understand," said Blaine. "And I want all your baggage, because I love you."

Kurt had to press his hand to his mouth to keep from sobbing aloud. He closed his eyes and nodded over and over.

"No one's ever said that to you, have they?" asked Blaine after a moment.

"No," said Kurt, his voice high and breathy. He took a shuddering breath. "Not like that." His vision started to clear, and the bluebirds he felt in his bloodstream last night took over once more. "And I've never said this to anyone, at least not in a way that counts. But I love you too."

Blaine smiled and kissed him. They stayed holding hands the entire time in the coffee shop, though this made the actual coffee drinking somewhat challenging. They talked about other hellish high school experiences - drinking too much and throwing up on a teacher's shoes, singing in (and being banned from) the GAP – and about NYADA and their dreams. It was almost dark outside by the time they talked about their families.

"Finn was just my friend at first," Kurt said. "But my dad fell in love with his mom, and they decided to get married, and Finn became my step-brother. And I was completely in love with him and we had to share a room – and Finn is _so_ straight. He's the guy that's never had to think about his sexuality once." Kurt paused to smile. "It goes along with his personality. He walks into things thinking they'll be simple."

"I don't think sharing a room with you sounds simple."

Kurt laughed. "It's not. And it was _Finn_. The guy who thought he saw the face of God in a grilled cheese sandwich. So it was only a matter of time before my decorating projects drove him over the edge and he called one of my lamps faggy. And my dad…my dad's always been a little protective of me."

"So basically, I should run," said Blaine.

"As fast as you can," agreed Kurt. "You might consider relocating to Guam."

Blaine grinned. "So what did your dad do?"

"He overheard us fighting, and came downstairs in his greaser clothes and gave this beautiful, impassioned speech," said Kurt, smiling softly. "He told Finn to leave the house. But Finn hadn't meant anything of course. Finn was the one that pulled me _out_ of the dumpsters. But, well, Dad's a congressman. He just has that sort of thing in his blood and, I'd say it was the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me, but he's done that kind of thing a million times. He's the greatest." Kurt's smile turned into a smirk. "He hated Malcolm."

"Does he know what happened?"

"I haven't quite worked up the courage for that conversation yet. And believe me, I've had some awkward conversations with my dad."

"Coming out?" guessed Blaine.

"No," said Kurt. "Sex. It included pamphlets."

"Yes!" shouted Blaine, and several people around them jumped. "My sex talk also included pamphlets!"

"Calm down, Crazy," laughed Kurt.

"Your story first," said Blaine, excited.

"Rachel tipped my dad off that I didn't know anything about sex. Which was true. I refused to watch pornography and I'd never done anything with anyone. And Rachel thought I was going to get in trouble at a party or something, so she asked my dad to talk to me, and…well, pamphlets. He told me that I mattered, and gave me pamphlets."

"Well, that's kind of sweet," admitted Blaine. "I mean, yes, awkward. But sweet."

Kurt started laughed. "But the pamphlets! They're so descriptive! They say things like _"the burning is normal, don't be alarmed_."

Blaine snorted into his coffee.

"But I _was_ alarmed," said Kurt. "I was so alarmed! Those pamphlets made me not want to have sex – ever – and I think that's the secret. The writers knew exactly what they were doing. It was a trick."

"Well, when they say things like _the burning is normal_," Blaine began to say, but cracked up. He began laughing so hard that he had to brace himself on the arm of the chair.

"And it was written like an afterthought, you know," Kurt continued. "Oh, by the way, you'll think someone shoved a hot pepper up your ass, but NBD."

Blaine was laughing hysterically, holding up his hands to tell Kurt to be quiet.

"There was even an illustration," Kurt went on. "I think it included a recipe for salsa."

Blaine made a noise like an injured cat and nearly crumpled his coffee cup in his hand. Kurt leaned back in his chair, satisfied, while Blaine fought to breathe.

"OK," he said finally, "that's the hardest I've ever laughed."

Kurt grinned. "That was kind of like watching a laughter orgasm."

Blaine laughed again, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. "No more laughing. No."

"I could make you laugh all night," said Kurt. "And when I say laugh, I mean come. And I swear, it wouldn't be anything like what my pamphlets described." Kurt sipped his coffee coolly while Blaine gaped at him. "So, what's your pamphlet story?"

"Oh, um – it's not as funny. It's kind of awful actually." He wrinkled his nose. "My parents aren't religious, but they decided the best way to have me not be gay was to have me talk to my religious aunt. And I have nothing against religious people, honestly. I hate their ignorance, not them. Anyway, my aunt sent me these religious pamphlets about homosexuality and," Blaine laughed, "and I literally opened the envelope while my high school boyfriend was giving me a backrub."

Kurt grinned hugely. "What were those pamphlets like?"

"They also mentioned burning, but it was more the eternal lake of fire kind." He rolled his eyes. "The pamphlets were a mess. They compared being gay to overeating. And I was sixteen. I was too old by then to really be afraid of religion, but the fact my parents thought they would work…it was just like, don't you know me at all? Don't you realize there's nothing you could say? It would have been okay if they disagreed and said I was making a choice and all that as long as they still treated me like an adult. But they just treated me like I was a sick little kid. And my brother was so worried about his fucking acting career that he couldn't help at all. Maybe you've seen him on TV. He's the guy from the free credit rating commercials."

"Wait," Kurt said. "That's your brother? _That's _your brother?"

"He's…yeah…he's good-looking. Mr. Hollywood," grumped Blaine. Then he shook his head. "He's a jerk. He should have been there for me."

"Does he also think being gay is…?"

"Oh, no. He's fine with that. He just thinks I'm untalented and boring."

"I would like to see him sing like you can sing," Kurt said softly. "And fuck good-looking, because you're gorgeous. You turn me on without even trying."

Blaine smiled. "Okay, every awful year with him was worth it to hear you say that."

Kurt grinned and kissed Blaine lightly. "Want to get out of here?"

They got on the subway towards Brooklyn together. Kurt rested his hand above Blaine's knee without blinking an eye, and Blaine caught himself staring. Kurt was sexy. Really sexy, and intelligent, and beautiful and…and Blaine realized he had never felt so privileged to be with someone. It had only ever been rushed one-night stands, and incidents in the NYADA locker rooms which, while exciting, weren't like this. Nothing was like this. Blaine loved Kurt. He loved him.

He couldn't lie. It was intimidating to love someone. He wasn't used to being an adult… paying rent, sleeping with men that weren't his gentle and predictable high school boyfriends, seeing what people meant when they said _fallen lost dirty crazy. _And Kurt wasn't just a new experience because Blaine loved him. He was new because he was telling the truth when he said he had baggage. Blaine knew Kurt would be a process; somehow, he knew that from the beginning, and he accepted it.

But _Kurt_. He just wanted to be with him and love him and see him smiling the way he was smiling now, and the thought that Kurt wasn't always alright was heartbreaking.

"I'm not sure you ever finished telling me about your brother," said Blaine. "You said you had to say goodbye to him?"

"Oh," Kurt said softly, the subway lights flashing behind him. "I don't know if you really want to hear about it."

"Only if you don't want to talk about it," Blaine replied. "It's a long ride."

"No, I do want to," said Kurt. "You should probably know what's going on." He smiled suddenly at Blaine, and snuggled closer to him, breathing in his scent of oranges and coffee and pepper. "I've never talked to anyone the way I can talk to you. It's hard to believe. So Finn…" he began slowly, "…grew up without a dad. His mom told him his dad had died in the war, but he found out last year that his father died of a drug overdose. It was _because _of the war I guess, since he only took drugs to cope with his PTSD, but…but Finn was heartbroken that he'd been lied to, and heartbroken that his dad couldn't be his hero anymore, and I think at first it was just curiosity. He wanted to see what drugs his dad had taken…maybe prove that they weren't really that bad…and then it turned into how he dealt with the pain. He has a heroin problem, and the reason I was upset that day a couple weeks ago was because he had been in the hospital for the hundredth time, and me and Rachel were finally …we were finally just done. We were done. So we sent him back to Lima, and it's just been hard. It's been so hard, on all of us. And Malcolm never listened to me. I never had anyone to talk to, except Rachel and she's…she doesn't need anyone complaining to her about Finn. She's been through too much already."

Blaine nodded and drew Kurt a little closer to him.

"You know when you love someone how you never lose hope?" asked Kurt. "Even though you know you should, know you'd be happier if you did…but you just can't, because you love them and maybe – _maybe – _they'll change this time, this time, this time…"

"I'm really sorry," Blaine whispered. "I'm sorry, Kurt."

"Maybe it'll be different from now on," said Kurt. Then he laughed. "See? There it is. Hope."

"Hope's not always bad," said Blaine after a while. "I know it can seem like it. I really do. But we'd all just give up without it."

"But that's what I mean," said Kurt. "That it might be better to give up."

"But you'd never get to experience the good stuff if you gave it all up. Maybe hope exists for the good, not the bad."

Kurt made a humming sound and finally whispered, "All night, I haven't known whether to laugh or cry. There's just so much need. I need you, and I need my brother, and I need _everything_."

"Well, I don't know about everything," said Blaine. "But you have me, if you need me."

Kurt smiled. "Maybe that is everything."

When the train reached Brooklyn, they got off and walked down Bond Street holding hands. Acknowledgement was all around, in the trees and the flickering lights. They were yielding to the night, to the inevitable joy and pain. They were in love.

"Will Santana be home?" wondered Kurt.

"I'm not sure," Blaine told him. "She's usually out late on Fridays, but she was mind-blowingly hungover this morning."

"Oh, sorry for that," said Kurt, laughing. "We were having a drinking competition last night and she lost. I just don't get drunk. I've only been drunk once, and that was in high school and it was because my idiot friend decided to spike all our drinks with rubbing alcohol."

"You know, you're kind of supernatural," observed Blaine. "You're beautiful, you can't get drunk and you are seriously good at flirting."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I'm also out of my mind."

"But everyone wants to be crazy and beautiful. Nobody wants the American Dream anymore. We want the fucked up version."

"Oh, stop," said Kurt. "You're making me feel like a Lana Del Ray song."

They rounded the corner and walked up the stairs to Blaine's apartment. Santana, as it turned out, was not home, but she left had a note.

_Out getting another bottle of baby formula. It apparently gets rid of hangovers. Tell Kurt my people are coming for him and there's no escape. Right, like he isn't with you right now. HA! _

Blaine laughed and showed Kurt the note. Kurt grinned, and then his lips faded into a thoughtful smile and he put the note down. He looked up at Blaine, and the next moment they were locked together, kissing passionately. Blaine pressed Kurt to the wall and Kurt's hands jumped in surprise. Then they flew to Blaine's shirt and started unbuttoning it.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Blaine, pulling back.

"We're just kissing," said Kurt sassily.

"Please," Blaine said seriously. "I'm asking you, Kurt."

"Then I'm sure," Kurt said simply.

He recaptured Blaine's lips in a kiss and continued unbuttoning his shirt, and Blaine reached around to cup his ass. He pulled Kurt against him forcefully, and Kurt whined against his lips.

"Mm, don't stop kissing me," he mumbled. "All night, don't stop kissing me."

"I won't," said Blaine, just as breathless. "I won't."

Kurt tugged Blaine even closer by his belt, and took it off in one motion. It landed on the floor with a loud clunk. They ran their hands through each other hair, and Kurt dragged Blaine's lip through his teeth. Blaine kissed down his jaw and Kurt surrendered to the wall after a moment, letting Blaine lick slow circles on his neck. He was completely wet with sweat and his fingernails were digging into the wall, but he didn't care. Blaine had him savage with need.

He pulled his hips up so they connected with Blaine's, and swallowed back a shout of pleasure. There wasn't enough skin for him to touch, not enough friction. He pulled Blaine closer. He'd had passionate sex before, but it had never been like this. It had never made him feel this hungry and frantic.

"Oh…oh God…Blaine," he muttered. "Take my clothes off. I'll die. I'll die if you don't take my clothes off."

Blaine looked into Kurt's eyes, which had somehow turned from glasz to black. He dragged his fingers down the line of buttons on Kurt's shirt, felt his abs tense, watched as he closed his eyes. He was held completely captive by the look on Kurt's face…delicate and reckless and pleading. It was too much.

He tugged Kurt's shirt off quickly, not bothering to unbutton it. Then his pants, his boxers. Kurt did the same to him, and they went into the bedroom, delirious and stumbling, and fell onto the bed together. Blaine kissed a pattern down Kurt's shoulders, the back of his arms, the small of his back. Kurt turned his face into the mattress, his mouth parted. It was all he could manage. Blaine's touch left him silent.

They turned over, fitting their bodies together closely. Blaine fucked Kurt slowly, and Kurt stretched up to kiss him, ran his hands down his body to his thighs, slowly back and forth. He wanted to say _I missed you, God I missed you_, but he couldn't explain how he could miss someone he'd never been with.

Their movements grew more and more intense, until Kurt's eyes were watery with exertion, until his breaths came in short gasps. They tangled their fingers together.

Kurt had always been able to lose himself in sex, but it was different with Blaine. He was so lost that, oddly, he didn't feel like he had a physical body at all. There was just a blazing light, and something like white noise, and maybe he was dying because he couldn't feel a thing until –

A tremor shot through his body and the physical came back like hot needles. He was so close, so close and Blaine… Blaine was a gorgeous disaster, hair wet to the very ends, his brow slightly wrinkled in concentration. Kurt's fingers curled in Blaine's hair, and Blaine bent his arm in between their body's and just _kissed_ Kurt's cock with his fingers, and…

Kurt yelled as he came, trying to find purchase on something, anything, and Blaine came a moment later, collapsing on top of Kurt, every muscle completely used up. They stayed still for a moment, struggling for breath, and then turned on their sides. Kurt locked his leg around Blaine's waist and thumbed over his chest and his collarbone. Blaine's eyes were still closed, but he was smiling.

"Fuck," he said softly.

Kurt smiled. They didn't speak for a while, but continued to touch each other softly, shivering in the draft from the open windows.

"I thought I'd never find someone like you," Kurt said finally. "I know everyone thinks that, I know it's stupid, but I didn't think you existed. At least not for me."

Blaine bit his lip and grinned. "It's not stupid. I didn't think I'd find you either."

"I wish I'd lost my virginity with you," said Kurt, and then laughed. "It's impossible to describe how bad that experience was. It wouldn't have been bad with you."

"How did you lose it?" Blaine asked earnestly.

"With Malcolm," answered Kurt. "He's older than me and I was just an intern at the time, and he had a lot of influence at Vogue, and I wanted to impress him. It was on our first date and I didn't tell him I'd never done it before because I thought that was something to be ashamed of. So we went home together and I…well, I screamed. Not the good kind of scream. Sort of the good kind. In any case, it hurt a lot."

Blaine bit his lip again and Kurt cocked an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Blaine said. "I was just going to make a pamphlet joke, but…"

Kurt burst out laughing. "You're unbelievable." Then he nuzzled Blaine's neck and said, "What about you?"

"Mm, high school. Dalton was like a huge singles' bar."

"Was it as awkward as I'm imagining it?"

"Mm, yes. Definitely. If you're imagining it as two fumbling sixteen-year-olds who really, really thought that shampoo would work as lube."

Kurt laughed again. "Oh, I wasn't thinking it was that bad." Then he paused. "Sixteen?"

"I wanted to be taken seriously," Blaine said. "And I thought no one would take me seriously if I hadn't had sex. And all that really happened was that I realized I hadn't taken _myself_ seriously enough." He made a thoughtful sound. "It's probably what really got me to believe in myself, though. I didn't ever want to feel like I had to give something precious up again, just because of what other people thought."

Kurt smiled and ran his hand through Blaine's hair.

"I like giving things up when they mean something," he said quietly. "It makes me feel like I can trust myself, like I'm worth something." He paused. "I'd do anything for you."

"I would do anything for you, too," Blaine said.

Kurt nestled closer to him and they fell asleep like this. Santana showed up several minutes later, lurching through the front door, her high heels tangling with the clothing on the floor. She smirked, glugged her baby formula, and strutted towards her room.

"_Wanky_."

* * *

**A/N:**

**1. Did anybody get the cigarette joke? Because Chris said that in an interview about Darren kissing him and it was kind of the cutest thing ever. Dammit Darren, get your sexuality together and marry Chris.**

**2. I watched The Normal Heart yesterday and it made me cry inconsolably, plus it has Matt Bomer in it. SO GO WATCH IT. **

**3. Brittany and Cooper will be making appearances. (So what if I re-fell in love with Matt Bomer and watched White Collar for like seven hours. So what.) I'd love it if you guys could give me cool Brittany/Santana and Blaine/Cooper ideas!**

**4. Things are about to get sad and crummy again, but at least I didn't cockblock Kurt and Blaine because I was totally going to and then I changed my mind because the song I was listening to was just too perfect for writing smut. ( watch?v=Jl8fV1jUQPs.)****  
**

**5. MATT FUCKING BOMER. I don't even like 50 Shades of Grey but how could they have not cast him? JEEZ. **

**I'll go fangirl out somewhere else. Thanks for any reviews ;)**


	6. Defunct

Kurt held a measuring cup up to eye level to check he'd poured in the right amount of milk. Satisfied, he swished it into a large bowl of flour and whisked it up. He kept checking the clock, six o' clock, seven o' clock – would Blaine be up by seven o' clock? – eight o' clock. He had just lifted the last strawberry crepe out of the pan when Blaine wandered out, hair in a spin, looking a bit like a child on Christmas morning.

"Hi," said Kurt breathily. "I made breakfast if you want any."

Blaine was staring at him, just _staring_. Kurt eventually looked away, pink in the face, and occupied himself with a bowl of whipped cream. When he turned back around, Blaine was still gawking. Was it because he was wearing his Dalton sweatshirt?

"Something wrong?" asked Kurt. "Are you sleepwalking?"

"I just – no one's ever made me breakfast," Blaine managed. "No guy's ever made breakfast."

Kurt smiled. Then he ran up to Blaine, kissed him quickly, and pulled him into the kitchen. He was suddenly talking very fast.

"Have you ever had crepes? When I went to France in high school I fell in love with them and devoted the whole next summer to learning how to make them from a traditional French recipe and when I saw you had strawberries, I just had to and—"

Blaine cut him off with a kiss. "You are the most amazing boyfriend in the entire world. And the sweatshirt looks good on you."

Kurt beamed. "You're the most amazing boyfriend, too."

"No, I'm the one that woke up looking like a hobo," grinned Blaine. "The hair is making you seriously reconsider this whole thing, isn't it?"

"No, your hair's gorgeous, and the fact you've been hiding it under a bottle of gel for your whole life is unacceptable," said Kurt. Then he grabbed the bowl of whipped cream and swiped some onto his finger. "Taste this."

Blaine raised an eyebrow before taking Kurt's finger into his mouth. His eyes widened. "Oh wow. That's delicious."

Kurt smiled and spooned some into his own mouth. He nodded. "It's perfect—"

Blaine interrupted him with a kiss again.

"You really have to stop doing that," mumbled Kurt.

"I just wanted another taste," Blaine said innocently, and Kurt laughed and kissed him. They lost themselves in the chilly kitchen for a moment, until Kurt pushed Blaine away and reached for a plate.

"Breakfast," he said firmly. He piled crepes and cream onto a plate. "Here."

Blaine smiled and accepted the plate. They ate quietly for a few minutes, occasionally glancing up and catching each other's eyes. A sly smile worked on Blaine's mouth the whole time, and when Kurt set his plate aside and yawned, Blaine snatched the bowl of whipped cream.

"What are we going to do with the rest of this?" he asked, and Kurt looked at him with a look of pure terror.

"We're going to cover it in plastic wrap?" he suggested hopefully.

Blaine shook his head, and before he could react, Kurt felt whipped cream splatter over his face. He looked at Blaine in outrage, stole the whipped cream bowl and threw a handful back at him. They were suddenly chasing each other around the kitchen, screaming and laughing and covered in whipped cream and slipping and kissing –

And kissing. Blaine cornered Kurt against the cabinets and took his face in his hands, and Kurt only had to look up through his eyelashes for Blaine to grip him close and kiss him passionately. He sunk into the kiss, his arms draped lazily over Blaine's shoulders, wrists crossing, and he would have been happy to stay there forever, even though he was covered in whipped cream, even though Blaine looked like he'd been woken from hibernation, but a voice broke through the air.

"Morning boys!"

Kurt and Blaine jumped apart and stared at Santana. She was smiling, but it didn't last long. As soon as she looked at Kurt, she wrinkled her nose.

"What are you covered in?"

Kurt put his hand on his hip, and sensing danger, Blaine jumped in.

"Whipped cream," he told Santana. "He made me breakfast."

"He – wait, what?" Santana looked confused. "He made you breakfast?"

"Why is me making breakfast so shocking?" Kurt asked Blaine quietly.

"Blaine's usually a _sorry but I have an early class so get going _kind of guy," said Santana. "I was surprised to see you were still here at all."

Kurt smiled. "While I'm still here, do you want breakfast?"

Santana's lips parted in a way that guaranteed a nasty remark, but then she swallowed and looked down. "No. No, thanks."

She looked at Kurt and Blaine with an indefinable sadness in her eyes, and then left the kitchen.

"Is she okay?" Kurt whispered.

Blaine was staring at the place she had disappeared from, and finally said, "I think she misses Brit."

"Brit?"

"Her girlfriend."

"Santana's a lesbian?"

"Yeah. She was so desperate at her old school that she tried to come to Dalton as a boy, but she doesn't exactly look like a boy and she got caught. That's how we met."

"And Brittany?"

"They mutually broke it off so San could come here and sing and Brit could go to MIT. But they were kind of meant to be and…" Blaine made a thinking noise. "I actually think she's jealous. Maybe I should—"

"Maybe you should get your underwear off the floor," Santana said, reappearing in the doorway, "before I take a picture and send it to your mother for Christmas. _Dear Mrs. Anderson, looks like your son screwed another guy! I'm as thrilled as you are_."

Blaine rolled his eyes and grabbed Kurt's hand. They went past her into the hallway and started collecting their clothes. Kurt picked up his jacket and his phone fell out.

"Fuck," he mumbled, glancing at the screen. _18 missed calls_. "Oh, fuck."

"Everything alright?" asked Blaine, straightening up and looking at Kurt. But Kurt was staring at his phone.

_Call us honey, something happened. – Carole_

_Call me RIGHT NOW. – Rachel._

_This is really serious. I need you. This isn't something we can do over texting. – Rachel_

_Please call as soon as you can. – Carole_

_Where are you? – Carole._

_Are you all right? – Rachel._

_Call us now, Kurt. – Burt_

_I'm begging. I don't want to tell you over texting. Please Kurt, please call. - Rachel_

_Finn's missing. – Burt._

Kurt put a trembling hand over his mouth. He registered tears in his eyes, but didn't feel them as they tumbled over his face, and then he was sobbing against Blaine's chest. Santana appeared in the hall, but Blaine met her eyes and shook his head slightly, and she walked away.

"Kurt?" said Blaine. "Kurt, what happened?"

Kurt only held onto Blaine more tightly. He started to whisper _oh no, oh no_ over and over, until he couldn't draw a breath. He eventually shuddered and became perfectly quiet.

Blaine thumbed over the hair above his ear, rocking him gently. "Hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay."

"My brother's…" Kurt choked, "…he's gone…and it's only been three days and…" He straightened up suddenly and wiped his face. "I have to see Rachel. I'm sorry. I have to go."

He rested out of Blaine's arms and pulled on the rest of his clothing. He kissed Blaine quickly, but his touch was empty and troubled, and he had gone out the door before Blaine could say another word.

* * *

"I'm sorry! I've said I'm sorry fifty times Rachel, and this is just as hard on me as it is on you!" Kurt wiped away his tears angrily as their cab barreled towards the airport. "I shut my phone off last night! I never heard it and I didn't think about it until this morning! If I had known, I would have texted you! I would have come back!"

"Why didn't you check your phone? All night and you didn't check your phone?" She was crying hysterically. "I had to deal with your parents all last night, Kurt! I've never been so embarrassed and uncomfortable and they kept asking where you were and I kept covering for you because you're so fragile!" She spat the last word and Kurt looked away to hide how hurt he was. "Your parents can't know anything, can they? They can't know that you made a mistake and dated a jerk! They can't know you found a man you really love because what if you're wrong about him too? People make mistakes, Kurt, and you thinking your life is going to be perfect one day and that you'll be able to tell your parents everything and be proud – it's dangerous!"

Kurt wiped his face again and swallowed the impulse to sob. "I'm sorry, Rachel. I'm so sorry, but my life's been really complicated and Blaine is the first good thing that's ever happened to me, and I needed him last night. I needed to shut my phone off and just love him. I needed to."

"Finn could be dead and you were—" she sobbed "—you were –"

"I couldn't have known," Kurt said quietly.

Rachel looked at Kurt, and eyes which were at first so full of bitterness had turned glassy and lifeless. She rested her head on Kurt's shoulder and cried quietly the rest of the way to the airport. Kurt thought about the chain of care. He was there for Rachel, and Blaine was there for him, and who was there for Blaine? Who was the last man standing? The one that didn't need love?

Who didn't need love?

And it hit him that that was the man Finn had always tried to be, and that's where all the trouble came from. Because that man didn't exist, and never could.

The airport was relatively quiet that morning, and they hadn't had time to put bags together, so they were able to go to their gate and wait. Kurt bought two hot chocolates that neither of them drank, and it wasn't until they were 40,000 feet above the ground that they spoke another word to each other.

"You never told me what happened yesterday," said Rachel.

Kurt smiled weakly. "I went into NYADA and got into a shouting match with Carmen Tibideaux."

Rachel sat up straight. "You what?"

"I was emotional and she said something that got to me and…I called her a bitch. And a coward. And I got thrown out by security."

"And Blaine?"

Kurt laughed. It was hard to fight the euphoria at moments. It was chemical, hormonal. "He watched the whole thing and then picked me up off the pavement and we had coffee and talked all afternoon and went home together and…"

"You had sex with him?" gasped Rachel.

"Why did you think I was gone all night?"

"Kurt!" Rachel was smiling like a psychopath. "_Kurt_!"

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He leaned away from her. "What's going on?"

Rachel laughed and wiped her eyes at the same time.

"This is so frustrating!" she cried. "You would have been dying to tell me under normal circumstances! You would have gushed for an hour and given me details I didn't want and we would have been…" Her eyes became fixed in his. "We would have been..."

He looked down. "I know. I didn't know what to say."

Rachel smiled sadly. "I'm happy for you. He seems extremely sweet."

"He is," said Kurt, his voice small. "I love him."

A cool voice came over the receiver. "_We'll be beginning our descent into Columbus in fifteen minutes! Please be prepared to return to your seats to the upright position at that time."_

"Is Burt picking us up?" asked Rachel.

"Yeah," said Kurt. "Carole's at home in case, you know, in case they get a call."

Rachel didn't speak for a few minutes, but she took Kurt's hand. He noticed tears pooling in her eyes like turquoise beads and thought for a second how beautiful she was and how no one saw it but Finn.

"It seems like this is it," she whispered finally. "I can feel it in my stomach."

"Try not to think about it," said Kurt. "You might be wrong."

"I'm not wrong," she said quietly. "He was my person."

* * *

Finn did not know why he was in this particular place. Lima had lots of old abandoned buildings, and he and Puck would hang out in them all the time, lighting campfires and tossing footballs. They were good places to be when it was snowy and cold. But the place Finn was in now was one he had no memories of, or at least, memories he could recall. But he wasn't all that sure where he was at all.

It was a large building, two stories, and there was a courtyard filled with clumpy, overgrown grass. The walls were covered in graffiti that he couldn't quite make out and the sky seemed to be spinning above him. He kept wandering, his overlong legs knocking into things, bruises forming, bruises he couldn't feel…

He didn't know why he kept walking, and he wondered if Rachel knew, if Kurt knew…images danced in front of him as clearly as if they were hung from the ceiling by fishing string. Rachel's seashell pink prom dress, Kurt trying to hide a black eye under a low-brimmed hat, Rachel spinning across the McKinley stage with her arms outstretched, Kurt laughing uncontrollably when Finn pronounced Prada like parade, Rachel crying on the train...

Kurt and Rachel went back and forth in Finn's mind for hours, and he felt senseless and alone. How could this be the first moment that he really knew that they were it? That he loved them more than he would ever love anyone else?

He slumped at the concrete and stared at the sky.

* * *

Burt hugged Kurt for a long time and it was all Kurt could do to not break down, especially when he noticed how gruff and exhausted his dad sounded.

"You look terrible, Bud," said Burt, holding Kurt at arm's length.

"The last few days were a little rough," said Kurt.

He hadn't had a shower since Open Mic Night, and the time in between had been spent crying, raging, wandering and having messy sex. He was sure his eyes had the characteristic gray hollows under them, sure that his usually pristine skin was shiny with oil. His hair probably had one-night-stand written all over it.

"Malcolm and I broke up," Kurt said in explanation, when Burt wouldn't let go of him.

"What?" snapped Burt. "What do you mean?"

"He cheated on me," Kurt said dully, walking towards the exit of the airport. "You can grill me about it in the car."

He heard Rachel and Burt talking behind him, but he had to walk ahead and be alone. He was suddenly furious with Finn for putting him through this, with his father for being worried about all the wrong things, with Rachel for accusing him of being negligent, even with Blaine, for loving him at the wrong time, for distracting him, for making him think for a brief moment that things would be okay. He wanted to scream. Fuck all of this. Fuck all of you.

By the time he reached the car his heart was racing, and when he saw it was his old Navigator, he slammed his hands against the door so that the car shook. It was freezing outside and he had left his jacket with Rachel, and it was so unfair that he couldn't stand it.

He couldn't stand it.

"Kurt," Burt said gently. "I didn't mean to upset you. Let's just drive home, okay?"

"Can I drive?" Kurt asked. "It'll calm me down. I never get to drive."

Burt nodded and handed him the keys. They all got in the car and started down the snowy freeway towards Lima. Kurt wondered what Finn's conversation with Carole was like when they went down the same road, only 36 hours ago.

"You said Malcolm cheated on you?" Burt asked, not able to help himself.

Kurt nodded. "Yes. I walked in on them."

"You kicked him out, right?"

"It wasn't my house. I was living with him."

"Then you left, right?"

"Yes, I left."

Burt nodded in the passenger's seat and drummed on the side of the door. "Don't let me see him, Kurt. It won't be pretty. It would be bad for the State of Ohio if I lost my job now."

"You won't see him," said Kurt with a quiet smile. "He's out of my life. And I wasn't going to show him to you anyway."

"You say that like he looks funny or something," said Burt.

"No, the opposite. I thought you'd think I was shallow. And I probably was." He started to laugh. "God, he looked like Jamie Dornan. Oh God…"

Burt looked thoroughly nonplussed about all this, but didn't say anything. The drive was relatively quiet – no one wanted to talk about Finn, and Kurt was in a strange mental space that was causing him to laugh and tear-up out of nowhere – and by the time they reached Lima, Rachel was asleep.

Kurt looked at Burt earnestly for the first time that day.

"Do you think Finn is okay?" he asked quietly. "Rachel said she thought something was different this time."

Burt smiled sadly. "I really don't know, Bud. I don't know."

* * *

Finn wandered out of the building – he now recognized it as the Lima Tuberculosis Hospital– and into the woods surrounding it. It was dark, and as his senses came back, cold.

It was so cold. He was so cold. He had never been so cold.

He shivered violently and staggered out of the thin strip of woods right into Crayton Avenue. A car swerved to avoid him and an angry voice erupted.

"You! Get off my property!"

Finn ran like an injured animal. Voices were everywhere, echoing, and he was so cold…he wasn't sure his feet were still alright…they felt dead underneath his weight. He felt something closing in on him, but he couldn't tell what it was other than blackness.

* * *

**A/N: The next chapter should be up today as well. :(**


	7. If You See the Stars Without Me

**_A/N:_**

**_This story is my way of grieving Cory and Finn. Before you read this chapter, I want you all to know something. _**

**_I get over things by really looking into them and really seeing what happened. I like seeing the grit and the dirt and the worst life can throw at me. I can't shove things away. It just doesn't work for me._**

**_This chapter is very explicit for this reason. Warning for character death, suicide, and drug-abuse._**

**_Another thing you need to know: This chapter does NOT reflect what I think happened in Cory's life/death. This was purely out of my imagination. That said, I did take some facts from Cory's death to use in this story as a way of remembering him._**

**_If you disagree with the way I handled this chapter, please PM me._**

**_Sorry this took so long. On the bright side, I actually got to write this chapter while I was waiting around in the hospital! I totes pretended I was Kurt and strutted around like a diva._**

**_Please review! This story's very important to me._**

**_Rest in Peace Cory and Finn._**

* * *

"My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today."

_Finn shrugged into his letterman jacket and walked out of Algebra class. Kurt would have to help him again because that whole "function box" concept wasn't making a lot of sense. It was chilly, even inside the school, and he was tired. He had stayed up late thinking about Jesse St. James, with the perfect hair and the perfect voice…the way Rachel looked at him was enough to make him nauseous. But the way Rachel looked at anyone wasn't supposed to matter. Quinn would kill him… and to make the social scene even worse than usual, it was prom season and prom season at McKinley was always a total wreck of elections, ballot-stuffing, crying girls, surprise candidates, changes of heart, confessions of love, proclamations of hate… and this season was shaping up to be even worse than usual. Rachel was dateless, and more pressingly, so was Kurt._

_Kurt was trying to put on a brave face, but Finn could tell it would only be so long before he'd crack. The bullying was worse than ever, and Karofsky had joined an anti-bullying league – something that was, in Finn's opinion, fishy. And what Kurt wanted was so simple. He just wanted a date. Not a boyfriend, not someone he loved. Just a date._

_But Finn knew as well as he did that it would never happen. Not in Lima, and not at this school. Burt and Carole decided to take Finn and Kurt to Lake Hope instead of have them go to prom. It was supposed to have the best star-gazing in Ohio, and Carole and Kurt could both look at the sky for hours._

_Finn had never quite gotten it. The sky was the sky. It was dark, and there were stars, and there was the moon. It was the sky. He wasn't sure what they were looking at when they looked at the sky, and when he asked Kurt about it, Kurt had rolled his eyes and walked away like it was self-explanatory._

_So Finn decided it was just the sky. That it was pretty. That people could stare at pretty things for hours. The only thing he'd ever stared at for hours was Grand Theft Auto, and that wasn't exactly staring. It was more a my-eyes-stopped-working-and-are-burning-and-I-can't-move-them kind of staring._ _But Carole was a woman and Kurt was, well, Kurt, so Finn figured it must be different for them._

_He passed Rachel on his way to American Lit, and she looked at her feet instead of at him. He took a deep breath and shrugged her off, and had just entered the next classroom when he heard a loud crash and a shout of pain. He turned around instinctively and started running down the hall to where the noise was coming from. A group of students was standing in a bubble, hands to their mouths, some with their phones up to record what was happening. Finn could just glimpse Kurt, who was cowering under a group of jocks._

_"Move!" shouted Finn. "Get out of the way!"_

_But the students didn't care about him or about his little fag brother, who was in the very center of them all, sounding like he was in a lot of pain._

_"MOVE! THAT'S MY BROTHER!"_

_As Finn got closer, he heard bits of conversations._

_"He deserves it—"_

_"Don't say that Jeremy, he can't help it—"_

_"Ugh, that must hurt—"_

_"Look at his jacket! It looks like it belongs on a Barbie doll…"_

_Finn shoved two Cheerios out of the way, but was still blocked. "MOVE! PLEASE MOVE! KURT!"_

_Karofsky had Kurt locked in his grip and Kurt was white-faced and trembling. Finn felt a surge of pride when he noticed Kurt was fighting back._

_"What do you want from me?" Kurt was shouting. "I can't give you anything!"_

_"You're the one telling people I'm gay!"_

_"No! I don't out people like you do!"_

_Finn noticed that Karofksy had Kurt's arm bent at an odd angle, and that he bent it more and more as Kurt talked._

_"Want me to break your arm?" roared Karofsky. "Admit it! Admit you're the one spreading that BS!"_

_"LET HIM GO!" Finn's voice wasn't his own. "LET HIM GO KAROFSKY!"_

_"Your brother's here!" Karofsky barked at Kurt. "You sicko! You fantasize about him? Sneak into his room? Faggot! How could you tell everybody I'm gay! Me!"_

_"I didn't say anything like that! I don't out people!" Kurt's voice turned hard all at once. "I offered to help you! I said I knew what you were going through, but apparently you hate yourself so much that-"_

_There was a sickening crack and Kurt sank to the floor. Azimio aimed a kick at him before he, Karofsky and the others ran off. The crowd dispersed and Finn finally broke through. He knelt by Kurt, who was clutching his arm. He was in so much pain that he was senseless. Finn thought he was going to pass out._

_"Somebody call an ambulance!" Finn shouted to the hall. "Get the nurse!"_

_Thirty minutes later, Finn was waiting in the St. Rita's E.R. with the only person who would come with him – Emma Pillsbury. She was talking rapidly about the national bullying epidemic, but Finn couldn't hear her. His ears were roaring like he was holding a seashell up to them._

_He was in disbelief. He knew Karofsky was bad news but to see him break his little brother's arm and be able to do nothing…to see Kurt in that kind of pain when he had only been trying to help…_

_He jumped to his feet._

_"Going somewhere?" asked Emma._

_"I – I'm gonna ask if I can see Kurt. I just – no offense Ms. Pillsbury – I just – I have to see him."_

_He walked up to the nurses' stations and became obnoxious enough that they let him through to the procedure room. Kurt was perched on a high stretcher with his shirt off. A doctor was wrapping his arm._

_"Kurt," said Finn, voice breathy with relief. "You're okay."_

_Kurt could only nod. The doctor turned around – he was old, with oval glasses – and surveyed Finn._

_"And who are you? His brother?"_

_"Uh, yeah. Step-brother. He's going to be okay, right?"_

_"His arm's broken in three places. It's a pretty unusual break. But yes, he'll be alright. He might have some occasional pain." The doctor pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Did you see it happen? He won't tell me how it happened."_

_Finn glanced at Kurt. Kurt shrugged and tears built up in his eyes. He was embarrassed._

_"He fell," said Finn decisively._

_"And landed on what?" asked the doctor. "It's a very distinctive break. You usually only see it when immense pressure is applied to the bone." He let go of Kurt's arm and looked at him kindly. "It's Kurt, right?"_

_Kurt nodded._

_"Look, Kurt," said the doctor. "If this was the result of bullying, you don't have to be ashamed. Whoever did this to you are the ones who should be ashamed."_

_Kurt nodded again but still found himself unable to answer. The doctor looked at Finn again._

_Finn sighed. "OK, look – the football team jumped him the hallway and accused him of calling one of their linemen gay and then they broke his arm. They just kind of…snapped it…it looked like a scene from a war movie." Finn found his blood pressure rising again. "He didn't do anything! The only thing Kurt's guilty of is being himself! He was just trying to help! He told Karofsky he'd help him because Karofsky's gay too, but then it got around and it wasn't Kurt's fault but they broke his arm anyway and—" Finn's anger was spinning away from him, and he kicked the doctor's metal cabinets, "—and no one will listen to him! No one tries to understand what it's like for him!"_

_Kurt was staring at Finn wide-eyed, and the doctor was smiling sadly._

_"Sorry about the cabinets," Finn said roughly. "It just makes me so angry."_

_The doctor finally cleared his throat and looked at Kurt. "People like your brother are rare, believe me. You're lucky." He finished wrapping Kurt's arm. "I'm gonna go get in contact with your parents."_

_He left the room. Kurt patted the stretcher and Finn sat next to him._

_"Thanks," he said dully. "For earlier. For everything."_

_"I didn't even…I couldn't even stop them."_

_"You're one guy, Finn," said Kurt. "You can't be everybody's everything all the time. If anyone could it would be you, but no one can." He winced suddenly._

_"Still hurts?" asked Finn. "Yeah. I remember when I broke my leg in football practice. I—"_

_He stopped because Kurt was crying. "Hey, c'mon – we'll, we'll get 'em. We'll get Karofsky."_

_Kurt shook his head. "I just wanted to go see the stars."_

_"Maybe we still can," said Finn, but he sounded doubtful. "Maybe your arm'll be okay by next week."_

_"Maybe I'll like girls by next week, too."_

_They were quiet for a minute. Kurt swung his feet so they bounced lightly on the stretcher. Finn's feet hit the floor, so he couldn't swing them._

_"Hey Kurt?" asked Finn. "When you look at the stars, what d'you see?"_

_Kurt smiled. "They're just stars."_

_"So there's no big secret?"_

_Kurt looked at his brother curiously. "What kind of secret?"_

_"Like…like when you look in someone's eyes," said Finn. "That kind of thing."_

_"I wouldn't know what that's like," mumbled Kurt. Then he looked down. "I'm sorry. You're right. I..." He said the next words very fast, "…sometimes I can see my mom."_

_Finn didn't speak for a minute. Then he said, "Does she say anything to you?"_

_"It's not really something I can see. It's just like she is sitting next to me."_

_"So that's why you look at the sky? Your mom?"_

_Kurt nodded. "Just my mom. That's the secret."_

* * *

Kurt ran his thumb over the lip of the sugar bowl again and again. It was his mom's sugar bowl. She had a whole collection of tea things, which Burt found odd uses for over the years. The sugar bowl Kurt was holding didn't contain sugar anymore. It had nails in it.

"Another one," said Burt, extending his hand. Kurt dropped a nail into it.

They were fixing Kurt's old bed, which had grown creaky and unstable while he was gone. It had been nearly a year since he had been home, and his room was identical. The creakiness of the bed was almost comforting, because if nothing had changed, what was his room other than a memorial?

"You really didn't have to do this, Dad," said Kurt, shaking the bowl of nails. "I could have slept there just fine. And I don't think I'll be here that long..."

Isabelle had been understanding about him missing work, but he didn't like to miss work, and he didn't like to miss Blaine. He was worried that if he stayed away too long he would start to think what he had with Blaine was all an illusion.

"Kurt, you can't sleep on a bed like this," Burt said firmly. "It'll fall apart."

"I wonder what happened to it," mumbled Kurt.

"When Finn was packing for New York he piled all his luggage on it. Maybe that was it."

"Or maybe he loosened all the nails as a practical joke."

"Sounds like him," agreed Burt. He held out his hand for another nail. "It's been three whole days now."

Kurt looked out the window and wrapped his sweater closer around his ribs. "It's really cold. If he's outside somewhere..."

"I don't think it can do any good to speculate, Kurt."

"It's not speculation. In New York he always ended up outside somehow. He's been in the hospital three times for frostbite, and he almost lost his finger last time..."

"I just mean...that it's hard enough when you're not thinking about it," said Burt. "When I saw you get off that plane, I almost didn't recognize you, Kurt."

Kurt nodded, his eyes still fixed on the frosty oak trees.

"You're so skinny. I'll admit though, you look better now you've had a shower and some real food. What do you eat in New York? Rice?"

Kurt smiled and turned back towards Burt. Sometimes it was hard to remember it's warm inside if your gaze is fixed outside.

"I eat as much as I want, Dad," said Kurt.

"Oh, like we'll ever forget that week in 2012 when all you'd eat was whey protein."

"That was to fit in a certain pair of pants."

"Oh, now, _that's_ different. It was for pants."

"It was for NYADA," Kurt explained. "I had to fit in these gold pants."

Burt turned around to look questioningly at his son. "You wore gold pants?"

"Gold stripper pants, actually. Really," he added, when Burt raised his eyebrows. "They were for _Not the Boy Next Door_."

Burt shook his head and turned back to working on the bed. "Well, we know one thing for sure. If it had been a gay dude judging you, you'd have gotten in."

"Aw, thanks Dad," said Kurt, kneeling down to get a better view. "Almost done?"

"Almost," said Burt, pounding in a final nail. "Carole's probably waiting on us for dinner."

They walked downstairs together. Rachel and Carole were setting the table in silence, but Rachel smiled when she saw Kurt.

"We made pasta with peas and bacon because—"

"Because that was Finn's favorite," said Kurt softly, and Rachel nodded.

They all sat around the table. The feeling of responsibility crept up on Kurt like it had the last time Finn disappeared, and he wanted to take it like a piece of junk mail and crumple it up and throw it into the trash. He didn't know why he resented it so much. He had grown up very early due to his mother's death. He felt he should be used to being an adult by now, after all he had gone through.

But maybe that was it. It was too much pain for someone so young.

He ate his pasta without a word. It was hard not to cry at the taste, at all the memories of Finn looking at Carole like she was a goddess and saying, "No. Not the pasta! You made me the pasta? I love this pasta!"

And he felt the same as Rachel. That this time was different. It was like Finn was already dead.

"I couldn't find the regular parmesan cheese, so I used the other kind…" Carole was saying.

"That's too bad," mumbled Rachel. "Did you check the cheese section by the deli?"

Burt was staring at his plate, not a bite taken. Kurt felt like he was watching his family's grief take its individual forms. Carole's struggle for routine, Rachel's open-hearted support, Burt's disbelief, his own silence. He wondered how long it would be like this, because he couldn't take another moment. Not another moment of Rachel's fragile strength or Carole's heartbreak. Not another moment of bacon pasta without Finn's voice in the background…

The phone rang. Kurt picked it up before anyone else had a chance.

"Hummel-Hudson Residence," he said.

"Is this Carole Hudson?"

Kurt sighed. "It's Kurt Hummel."

"Hello Mr. Hummel. This is the Lima Police department. We've located Finn Hudson."

"Is he—?"

"He's unconscious, Mr. Hummel, and in the hospital."

Kurt held the phone to his chest. "He's alive."

Carole pressed her hands over her mouth and Rachel's face trembled. Burt took the first deep breath he had taken in hours.

"Hello? Are you there?"

"I'm here!" said Kurt, shaking and smiling. "I'm here."

"I'll put you in contact with the hospital, and you can go from there."

"Thank you," said Kurt. "Thank you so much."

He put the phone aside. Then he slid to the floor and started to cry uncontrollably.

"He's okay. He's okay…"

* * *

The first thing Finn registered was that the room was bright. If it was a room. It was bright and cold, and there were high-pitched noises. Beeping. Ringing.

He opened his eyes more completely.

The room – it was definitely a room – was sectioned off by mint-colored curtains. It was morning. He could hear soft conversation from the corner.

"And I completely forgot myself, and I just locked myself in the bathroom. Why is it always bathrooms? I always end up sleeping in bathrooms…"

It was Kurt's voice, and it sounded sarcastic and full of joy.

"So you slept in the bathroom, woke up, and remembered what happened?"

That was Rachel's voice. It was also soft and happy. Rachel's voice…

"Rach?" He must not have spoken loudly enough. "Rach? That you?"

Kurt and Rachel's conversation broke off abruptly. There was a pause. Then –

"Oh my God! He's awake! Kurt! Kurt! He's awake! Get over here!"

Rachel and Kurt were on either side of his bed, pressing his arms and kissing him and exclaiming.

"Hey, stop," Finn said weakly. "It's OK."

Rachel laughed and burst into tears. Kurt stepped back from the bed with his hand over his mouth. Burt and Carole came in a moment later. Carole couldn't control her crying. Burt wasn't the least bit gruff. His auto-mechanic heart had warmed up like a chilly bird in the sun.

"We really – we really thought this was it Finn," Rachel said. "You can come back to New York. This was a terrible idea and we should have known you needed to be around us. This is all our fault."

As Finn stared at Rachel, his heart dropped like a marble. There she was, beautiful and earnest, and she was apologizing for something _he_ had done, for something she could not control. He had put her through it again. He had let her believe he was gone.

* * *

Guilt wasn't an easily-disguised emotion. It came with a physical jolt. A headache. A stomach cramp. Nausea. Sleepless nights. That's the immutable human conscience.

Finn could not get Kurt and Rachel off his mind. He understood for the first time what it must be like for them. It was bad enough that they had to go through the process of losing him once, but to put them through it repeatedly was coldblooded and unforgivable.

He was the weight that kept them both down. He was the selfish one.

The funny thing was, it might have all been okay if they had yelled at him. If Rachel had sworn never to speak to him again. If Kurt had turned away wordlessly. But they had taken the blame so that he didn't have to, even though they all knew nothing was further from the truth.

Somehow he knew it was all fear. He couldn't take the blame because he was afraid what it would mean, and they couldn't blame him because they were afraid of last words.

He thought about what he could do to make it up to Kurt and Rachel, but he was sure there was nothing that would pay the damages. No favor, no insistence, no love could do it.

It was there with all of them to stay.

The doctors agreed that Finn had to stay in the hospital overnight. His condition was stable despite a few frostbitten fingers – nothing so serious it had to be amputated – but he had a light fever that they wanted to keep an eye on. Kurt was the one that spent the night with him, and he insisted Carole and the rest go home. Finn thought it was funny to see Kurt giving direction. But then, maybe what was funny was that he seemed so comfortable with it.

Kurt, the walking Broadway encyclopedia, the portable shoe glossary, the most terrorized boy in Lima. Here he was a year later, hugging and comforting Finn's girlfriend and telling his mother to get some sleep. Putting himself out on the front lines and smiling about it.

Kurt's recent confidence didn't help Finn feel any less guilty. Kurt had endured his mother's death and years of bullying and he was still strong enough to handle whatever he needed to. Finn had injected his life away just because he couldn't bear the _thought _of his father's death.

It was humiliating.

Kurt walked into Finn's room and stretched. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "For something other than hospital food? Because I've only been here a couple hours and if I even _smell_ another microwaved egg, I'll probably never eat again."

Finn had to smile. "Snob."

"Tasteless jock!" Kurt said, his hand jumping to his hip. "What'll it be? Ralphie's Sports Bar?"

Finn looked at his lap. "I don't want you to have to—"

"I'm going out anyway," said Kurt, pulling on his jacket. "And if you don't speak up, I'll come back with exotic cheese or something."

"Ralphie's is…" Finn almost cried. "Yeah. I'd love that."

Kurt nodded and turned out the door, but Finn called after him. "Kurt! Let me know what the score is! The Buckeyes!"

Kurt grinned and disappeared. Finn sat back in bed and the nurses came in to adjust his IVs, and he had to pretend he had something in his eye. God, the guilt. It was like beetles digging into him and he couldn't shake them off. The thought started small at first, but he could tell it would grow.

They'd be better off without him.

Kurt came back an hour later with onion straws and two cheeseburgers. He was almost in the room when a nurse stopped him.

"I'm sorry," she said crisply. "No outside food."

"My brother is _not_ going to be subjected to another meal of meat jelly or whatever that disgusting beige substance you feed your patients is."

The nurse sighed and walked away. Kurt darted into Finn's room and handed Finn the bag of food.

"The score was 27-10 to the Buckeye's when I checked," he told Finn. "They'd just made a field goal."

"But did they sing Single Ladies first?"

Kurt grinned. "That would be copyright infringement."

Finn smiled, opening his cheeseburger. "You know, I never really told you how incredible you were that game. We couldn't have done it without you."

Kurt sat on the edge of Finn's bed, also digging into the bag. "You told me."

"No, I didn't," said Finn quietly. "I should have told you a lot of things. And I should have properly apologized for the pee balloons."

Kurt snorted in laughter. "Oh my God, I'd forgotten all about the pee balloons. You actually threw pee at me!"

Finn squinted above the wrapper of his cheeseburger. "Sorry about it."

"And the lawn furniture. The slushy! The unforgivable slushy, after you'd won my trust!"

Finn cringed. "I know, man. I'm sorry about all of it."

"Hey, don't apologize," said Kurt, taking a huge bite of his burger. "You saved my life." Then he closed his eyes. "Mmm, oh God."

"You miss Midwestern food," said Finn. "Admit it."

Kurt shook his head and swallowed. "I do not."

"You do!" said Finn. "You're a stick! All you eat is kale and broccoli rape."

"Broccoli _rabe_," Kurt said, and started laughing uncontrollably. "Broccoli rape! Oh my God." He hiccupped. "You know, I'm really glad you aren't dead. You make me laugh."

Finn shrugged. "I try."

"No, really," said Kurt, taking another huge bite. "You're the best. You defended my prom outfit. You protected me from Karofsky. You moved to New York so I wouldn't have to be alone with Rachel. I love you."

"I love you, too," said Finn, smiling. "Brothers from another mother."

Kurt grinned. "That's right."

"Hey, speaking of _love,_" said Finn, "Rachel mentioned something about you and your barrister?"

"Barista," corrected Kurt.

"Barista," said Finn. "What happened?"

Kurt blushed and wiped the ketchup off his mouth. "We might have…done some things."

"Done some things like Disney-Channel-summer-special or things like clear-my-browser-history-right-now?"

"I _think_ what you're asking is whether we kissed or had sex," said Kurt. "We had sex."

"Oh, best wishes, man!"

Kurt made a face. "What?"

"Isn't that what you're supposed to say?"

"It's what you're supposed to say to a bride. On her wedding day."

"Oh…" mumbled Finn. "I was going to say 'score' but that seemed wrong too."

Kurt cracked up. "I actually have no idea what you should say when your brother says he had sex."

"Yeah," agreed Finn. "Maybe _good job_?"

"No, not good job."

"What about _righteous_?"

"Oh God, no. No no."

"How about _I won't tell Dad_?"

"I like that," said Kurt. "And please don't. He thinks I'm in fragile emotional state due to Malcolm." He finished his burger and dove into the onion straws. "But I actually couldn't be happier. You're okay, and Blaine is in my life."

"So you two're together?"

Kurt nodded. "I think so. We didn't really decide officially. Speaking of, mind if I call him?"

Finn shook his head and Kurt left the room. When he came back, he was smiling brightly and was a little flushed in the cheeks.

"Let's get this food out of here before I get thrown out," he said, gathering up the wrappers. "Did I tell you I got bodily removed from NYADA?"

"Hey Kurt?" Finn said suddenly. "Can I ask you something?"

Kurt turned around, smile fading. "Of course."

"Remember the time you broke your arm and we talked about the stars?"

Kurt nodded, brow wrinkling.

"I want to ask…if you still feel that way. If you can still feel your mom around."

Kurt straightened up and placed the wrappers in a nearby trash can.

"Yes," he said finally. "I can. Why'd you ask me that?"

"Because I dreamed about it," admitted Finn. "It was a whole flashback of when you broke your arm and I think it has to mean something."

Kurt sat on the end of the bed. "Sometimes when we're unconscious our brains just go places…"

"It wasn't like that," insisted Finn. "It was important."

Kurt looked at him like he was far away. "I don't know, Finn. I don't know what seeing the stars means."

* * *

Carole spent the next morning with Finn and they talked about what he wanted to do in New York. He wasn't sure yet, but he was still thinking about teaching. Maybe NYU had a program? But Finn wasn't sure he could get into NYU. What he'd really wanted since high school was to stay in Lima and teach at McKinley – New York had never been a good environment for him. Rachel and Kurt may love aggressive homeless people, pigeons, $5 coffee and telling off whoever had the audacity to take their spot on the subway, but Finn wasn't a diva. He liked hash browns and tennis shoes and houses with real ceilings that were high enough he didn't hit his head every time he stood up. And New York didn't have houses with real ceilings.

The only thing New York had was Rachel and Kurt.

After high school, he and Rachel had a chance to go their separate ways. He put her on a train to New York and planned to join the army, but by the time he got to Georgia, he missed her too much. And Kurt was, in her words, "being slutty and insufferable, I think he has a sugar daddy." That wasn't something Finn could just shrug off.

So he went to New York to live with them. Kurt was a beautiful disaster, but that was what he had always wanted to be and Finn's cautions had absolutely no effect on him. And Rachel was incredibly busy with NYADA and he barely got to spend time with her. But still, the idea of being apart from them was too much.

He wished he was stronger. He wished he had been able to send Rachel off.

Rachel visited him in the hospital that afternoon. Her movements were over-careful and her voice restrained. She was nothing like herself, and she held back in their conversation until the very end.

"So, Finn, I was thinking…"

She was sitting in a turquoise vinyl chair at his bedside, holding his hands. It was nearly dark outside and the hospital's whirring and beeping seemed louder than ever.

"What were you thinking, Rach?"

"I was thinking…that I would take a year off at NYADA. They let their good students do that, you know. And we could come back here and build a life and maybe…" She swallowed hard. "Maybe if it works out, we could just stay…"

Everything he should have said – "You have a gift!" "You could never give up NYADA!" "This is your dream!" –failed him. The girl he loved was offering to live in Ohio with him, to follow his dreams instead of her own.

The guilt he felt was inexpressible, but he couldn't find his voice to tell her she was wrong. He just sat in static silent shock and nodded.

Rachel smiled. "Great. I guess I'll call Madame Tibideaux and discuss it." She laughed. "I hope Kurt didn't ruin my chances. She might hate both of us after his little outburst."

She left the room and Finn's voice came back. "Rachel! Rach, wait!"

She turned around in the doorway. "What, Finn?"

_You can't give up. I'm not worth it._

But he shook his head even as the guilt consumed him. "Nothing. I love you."

She smiled. "Love you too!"

* * *

Kurt was in a state. He had drawn himself up to his fullest height and was yelling at Rachel in breathy, treble voice – and when his voice got like that, there was no stopping him.

"No, Rachel, you _can't_! You can't pick up and leave NYADA! You worked twelve years to get into that school! I would give anything to be at NYADA! It's a waste of talent! And he – he doesn't really mean what he says! He doesn't really mean he'll be happy in Ohio!"

"He said—"

"I don't care what he said! He wants you to follow your dreams! He'd rather die!"

"But he said—"

"Are you listening?"

"You aren't!" she finally exclaimed. "You're just yelling! You're always yelling!"

"I'm always yelling because you're always being a self-sacrificing idiot!"

"Get off the estrogen pills, Kurt!"

Kurt took a step back. "Fine," he said quietly. "You might think you're doing this for him, and you might be, but you're making it _about_ you, like you always do. He was right to put you on the train and send you off because he knew – he _knew_ – you'd do this. But you do what you want. I'm done."

Rachel knew she'd gone too far. "Kurt, I'm – I'm—"

"Oh, don't apologize!" he snarled, leaving the room. "I'm late to go pick up my estrogen pills!"

Rachel collapsed into a chair in the Hummel-Hudson living room. Kurt got into his Navigator and slammed the door. He was just driving away when his phone rang.

"What now?" he answered tersely.

"Bad time?" asked Blaine, and Kurt sagged a little in his seat.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were Rachel."

"What did she do?" he asked.

"She's just being…Rachel. She told me I shouldn't act like a girl so much."

"That's not very nice," said Blaine.

Kurt smiled and put his phone on speaker. "It's good to hear your voice."

"It's good to hear yours," said Blaine. "What are you up to?"

"I'm driving to the hospital to yell at Finn," sighed Kurt. "But I don't think I will now. You have a calming effect on me." He laughed. "You know, I was thinking about what type of person I can be boyfriends with, and it has to be someone like you. Someone who doesn't go off the deep end."

"You aren't that bad, Kurt."

"Yes I am! Dad says I'll cause an international incident one day, because of something stupid…like someone making my latte wrong or not opening the elevator in time. And I'll probably call you an ugly name just for leaving a ring on my coffee table."

"I won't blame you," promised Blaine.

"I love you," said Kurt.

Blaine smiled into the phone. "Love you too. When are you coming back to New York?"

"As soon as they release Finn," said Kurt. "I'm having visions of my interns doing criminal things to my designs. Like using them as coloring books."

"You're in charge of people?" asked Blaine. "That's kind of sexy."

Kurt grinned. "It's not sexy."

"I like it when you're bossy," said Blaine. "Watching you yell at Ms. Tibideaux? You're lucky I didn't kiss you while the guards still had a hold of you."

"It was kind of badass," admitted Kurt. Then he asked, "What are _you_ up to?"

"I'm on my way home from NYADA," said Blaine. "I got a spot in the Winter Showcase."

"Blaine! You let me talk for ten minutes! You were holding that back? That's huge! Rachel wouldn't shut up about that for weeks last year! What are you singing?"

"I don't know yet," said Blaine. "I'm usually not a ballad guy."

"You did an incredible job at the coffee shop."

"But I really felt that when I was singing it. I can't just sing to an audience like that."

"What if I was in the audience?"

"That would fix everything."

They talked the rest of the drive. Kurt picked up two massive hot chocolates from the Lima Bean, then went into the hospital and found Finn drinking tea out of a brown plastic cup and looking out the window. His room overlooked the public library and several massive oak trees.

"It's gonna snow again," said Kurt, setting the hot chocolate down. "It's really windy outside."

"Did you see Rachel?" Finn asked unsurely.

Kurt nodded. "She wants to leave NYADA."

Finn looked away. Then he pushed his hot chocolate away.

"I want to be alone right now, Kurt."

* * *

Rachel knew that Carmen Tibideaux was someone to be respected. That was her toll for a conversation. No amount of begging helped. No promises would soothe her. She wanted respect, not love, and all Rachel could do was ask.

"Madam Tibideaux? This is Rachel Berry."

"Rachel." Ms. Tibideaux's tone wasn't encouraging. "What can I do for you?"

"I would like to petition for a gap year."

"A gap year? Now? The semester is underway."

"I realize that," said Rachel. "But I'm having some serious family problems, and I need to take time off."

"What kind of family problems?" asked Ms. Tibideaux. "It's likely we would need a signed form from a counselor or a doctor."

"My boyfriend…" she sighed before going on, "…is battling a drug addiction and—"

"Ms. Berry," said Ms. Tibideaux in a loud, final voice. "Your boyfriend is not family, nor is he my concern. You were privileged enough to be admitted to the top dramatic arts school in the country, and if you find yourself unable to make it your top priority, you should drop out. NYADA does not make exceptions unless a student's personal situation is very grave.

"What are you saying?" whispered Rachel, though she already knew.

"I am saying, Ms. Berry, that you need to make a choice. Supporting your boyfriend or pursuing your education." She paused. "Be advised that if you make the choice to drop out, we will not re-accept you."

"I can't take a gap year?"

"_No_, Ms. Berry. You don't qualify."

"Then I would like to drop out," said Rachel, voice at its smallest.

"Are you sure you would not like to discuss this with him?"

"Yes," said Rachel firmly. Her heart flipped in her chest. "I want to drop out."

"Very well," said Ms. Tibideaux. "I will submit your paperwork. Goodbye, Ms. Berry."

Rachel hung up. Her throat felt heavy and sore. She hung her head over her lap and clenched her fingers into the sheets on Kurt's bed.

It was hard to breathe. It was the same feeling she experienced when she choked during her audition. She was losing NYADA. Again.

When she went downstairs, she found Burt nursing a cup of cold coffee.

"Hey Rachel," he said. "Is Kurt okay? He left here in one of his moods."

Rachel smiled weakly. "He's fine." She meant to walk out of the kitchen, but something stopped her. "Hey Burt?"

He glanced up.

"Would you consider letting Finn work for you again?"

Burt nodded. "Of course. He's family."

"And I…I think I overheard you and Carole talking about a waitressing job? Where was that at?"

"Oh, yeah, Lu Lu's," said Burt. "That's a good opportunity."

Rachel nodded and left.

Rachel walked into the hospital an hour later, bearing a container of peppermint bark. Kurt was asleep in the chairs outside, with a cup of hot chocolate tipping dangerously in his hands. Rachel took it from him and set it on a nearby table. He slumped over more completely, and she considered taking a picture – it was prime blackmail material- but decided against it and went into Finn's room.

"Hey Babe," Rachel said brightly, handing him the peppermint bark. "It's your favorite."

Finn nodded and placed the peppermint bark on the other side of his bed. Rachel curled up next to him with a clipboard and started filling out her Lu Lu's application.

"What's that?" asked Finn.

"It's a job application," she said. "It's that nice diner by the cemetery."

"Oh," he said quietly. "So you're really serious about this NYADA thing."

"I already called," said Rachel.

Finn wasn't sure if she was being so unresponsive so she could see him react honestly or what she was doing, if she was doing anything, but it was unnerving. She was filling out the application like it was something she did all the time. His Rachel. His passionate, big-gold-star Rachel. Filling out a diner application. In Lima. And she wasn't shedding a single tear.

"So…she's letting you take a gap year?"

"Um, no. But NYADA wasn't working anyway."

Finn's chest felt tight suddenly. "Rachel, did you drop out?"

She didn't answer. He took her wrist to pause her writing.

"Rachel," he said seriously. "Rachel?"

She shrugged. "I want to be with you, Finn."

He looked at her with wide, horrified eyes. "Rach, no. No, no, no."

"It's okay," she said, voice infused with desperate sincerity. "I swear. It's okay."

But he couldn't stop staring at her. She looked the same as she did when he met her sophomore year, singing _Don't Stop Believin' _and being short and intimidating and exactly who he wanted; she looked the same, but she was dead.

* * *

Kurt insisted on staying at the hospital overnight again. Rachel had gone home with a strange look in her eyes and said she couldn't be in the hospital anymore, and Carole and Burt were, as ever, busy with congressional things and thankful Kurt could step in.

Finn seemed the most comfortable around Kurt anyway. Kurt picked up food again – Chinese - and they ate together while the snow came down.

"So whatever happened with Rachel?" Kurt wondered, voice warm and casual.

Finn stopped eating and didn't answer.

"I take the silence as a bad sign," mumbled Kurt. He looked at his brother. "What happened?"

"She's, um, she's thinking it over," lied Finn.

"Have you been able to tell her how you feel?"

"No, not yet. She, um—" But he wasn't able to go on. He set his food aside and held his head in his hands. "Kurt, I screwed up."

Kurt rubbed his shoulder. "I'm sure it's nothing too bad."

"She dropped out," Finn whispered. "She dropped out already."

Kurt pulled back and stared at him. Finn tried to pretend that the gleam in Kurt's eyes was confusion or pity. But this close, there was no mistaking it.

_You did this to her. You did this to my best friend._

* * *

Finn was kept up all night by the irrational urge to go outside and look up at the sky. Kurt was asleep on a cot nearby and the nurses were few and far between, and finally, Finn crept out of bed and went up to the roof. He had to force open the door, but the alarm he thought would sound didn't, and he was able to go to the very edge of the building.

He wrapped his letterman jacket snugly around him and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night – the snow clouds had moved on – and the moon shone brightly. Faint stars gleamed with a cold white light, some of them as fine as dust on black fabric.

He had once been so close. He had put Rachel on a train…he had made her choose her dreams over him. But then his father's death caught up with him and he couldn't go on without her by his side, and he ruined everything he worked so hard for.

He knew it was the end.

But ends were funny. At first they created a feeling of spiraling. The world turning to gray dust, a powerful force sucking it into blackness. And then they were something else. After everything went black, the world lit up again. It rebooted. A flickering light grew bigger and bigger until it ignited the truth.

And even if the truth was tragic, it was the truth, finally the truth.

For the briefest moment, Finn felt at peace. He hoped Rachel understood one day that what he was about to do was meant to set her free.

And the stars were so bright tonight.

* * *

It wasn't hard to find the champagne. The heroin was harder. He knew the best places to look in Lima, but it was nearly four in the morning until he located a dealer who would sell him 500mg. It was more than he had ever bought, and it seemed, more than the dealer had ever sold.

He walked to the Lima Tuberculosis Hospital, the same abandoned building he'd been in last time. It was almost light out, and it was bitter cold. He had left his letterman jacket behind.

The abandoned hospital was eerier than before. Maybe it was the semi-darkness and the way the shadows played on the wall. Maybe it was that he wasn't high yet, and the red graffiti really was red, the rubble really was under his feet. He wasn't floating the way he was last time.

He walked across the overgrown courtyard and into the building, and found an open section that must have been a cafeteria. It was very dark here, despite the fact the sun was coming up. He sat down in the white dust and leaned against the wall.

He opened the champagne and drank it slowly. Then he took out his bag, which he'd taken from his car on the way over. He dropped the heroin – which looked a bit like a piece of burnt plastic – into the center of a big silver spoon, squirted some water into the spoon, and then heated it from below with his lighter. When it was done, he dropped a small piece of cotton in the center, pushed the needle through it, and pulled the plunger out so the syringe sucked up all the liquid.

When he wanted to do something, he stopped debating at a certain point. He wasn't like Kurt or Rachel, who were jumpy during new experiences. Should I? Should I really? Not Finn. He decided, and it was done.

He stuck the needle in.

It was only a few moments after the familiar rush that the room began to…wave…and spin…and roll underneath him like a wave. He heard gasping, scraping, the sound of skin on floor, reaching, reaching…and the room turned over. He closed his eyes and lights pulsed on the backs of his eyelids. He thought about the nightlight his mom had gotten him as a little kid, the way those lights pulsed…

He thought about peppermint bark…

He thought about the letterman jacket, the letterman jacket…McKinley…

Kurt's blue-green-gold eyes flashed.

He thought about the…the…

The apartment in New York…the carpet…were they cleaning the carpet?

And Rachel. Rachel in a seashell pink dress, running across the stage and…

And then there was nothing. Finn's clear brown eyes slid out of focus and stared, unseeing, at the red graffiti and the rubble, and he never heard his brother's footsteps.

* * *

_One Hour Earlier_

Kurt woke up from a deep sleep and it took him a moment to remember where he was. On an uncomfortable cot in the hospital. He sat up and rubbed his eyes free of sleep. It was early, not quite light out, and he wanted coffee.

He stretched his arms over his head and cracked his knuckles. He was about to get up when he noticed Finn's bed was empty.

In place of his brother was his letterman jacket and a note.

Kurt flew over to the bed and unwrapped the note with shaking fingers. Somewhere in his stomach, he knew. He just knew. But that didn't prepare him for what he read.

_Hey Little Brother_

_I can't keep screwing up Rachel's life. Or yours. It's funny, but I do know she loves me. And I love her. And you'd think we could get that to work. But I guess you were always right. Love's complicated. Or maybe you said love sucks. Either way._

_I failed English because I could never get to the point. Or something. So I'll just tell you._

_I'm taking myself out. It's what you do in football when you bring everybody else down. It's the right thing to do. Rachel deserves so much more. And I'm not saying I'm not worthy or something. I just feel like…another lifetime and Rach and I would be okay. But not this one._

_She's my star. She everyone's star. She's so talented and the proudest moment of my life was putting her on that train and letting her go._

_I guess I'm putting her on the train again. Tell her I love her._

_Now about you. I never actually hated you, first of all. Even in our first year at high school. I'd look at you and think, wow, that chick is not afraid of anything. I call you a chick in my mind. Sorry bro. What I'm trying to say is I always really admired you. You were so brave._

_And when I got to know you and you became my brother, I realized the word 'brave' just didn't cut it. You taught me everything I know about being a man._

_Remember what you told me about seeing the stars? That you can feel your mom with you?_

_I finally got it. So if you see the stars without me, think of me._

_I guess I have to tell you where I am. The Lima TB Hospital. Tell mom and dad I love them. And I love you Kurt._

_Finn_

Kurt did not move. Could not move. He needed something to hold on to.

He was an actor. He had thought about getting letters like this. He had even practiced his reactions. But it wasn't the same in real life. It was like being hit hard and painlessly in the chest. Like a bird had flown out of him and left him cut open.

When he took his first shuddering breath, life shot back into him. And suddenly he was sprinting, the overlarge letterman jacket hitting the backs of his legs.

He got in his car and drove as fast as he could to the abandoned hospital. His mind was so full that it felt empty and numb and the only thought that came through was a single word.

No. God no. Please no.

He left his car running on Crayton Avenue and sprinted down the wet road, climbed the fence and ignored the stinging in his hands. He was normally afraid of places like the abandoned hospital, but not now. He felt bodyless, mindless. There was only Finn. There was only Finn…

There was Finn. He wasn't moving.

Kurt ran up to him as fast as he could and knelt by his side. His brother's gangly body was stretched over the floor like a bounce-house that had been deflated.

It was the first time Kurt registered his own voice, and he was screaming.

"Finn! Finn, wake up! Finn! Finn, please! Please wake up…Finn…"

But even a little brother will stop screaming at someone who can't hear him.

His voice wrecked, Kurt slumped against the floor and took Finn's body up in his arms. He rocked back and forth and sobbed silently. He felt more than he could express, even to himself. His mind was as still as Finn's unclosed eyes.

He didn't remember calling his parents. He didn't remember calling Rachel. He didn't remember calling the paramedics. But within an hour, he was sitting in the hospital emergency room with a heavy blanket around him and a cup of tea in his hands. The police were there. They were asking him questions, but he couldn't hear them. Everything was in a haze.

A group of doctors came out and said something to Burt and Carole. Carole didn't move, but Burt looked down at the linoleum. And it was this that caused the wires to re-fuse in Kurt's mind. And the pain surfaced. He hugged his dad and sobbed against his chest. He hugged Rachel and they sobbed together. He wasn't the strong one now. No one was the strong one now. Every feeling was white-hot, every breath uncertain…and time moved so slowly.

It was almost morning, and Finn Hudson was dead.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Thanks for reading.** **Love all you guys. :(**

**The quote at the beginning is from _Watership Down_ by Richard Adams. **

**The songs for this chapter are:**

**What Sarah Said by Death Cab for Cutie. **

**Guilt by Hurts.**

**Riverside by Agnes Obel.**


	8. Imaginary Friends

**A/N:**

**Hey guys! This is going to be a Santana/Blaine centered chapter because I couldn't write another tragic chapter at the moment. Also, I feel like I haven't done much character background on them and I've got such an intense headcanon for it, so I wanted to put some of it in! PLUS I live on the West Coast during the summer, but go to school in New England, and I'm in the middle of transitioning back into college life...so I couldn't write anything super serious, I'm just too busy!**

**So, sorry! There's an appearance by Brit tho!**

**And thank you from the bottom of my heart for the reviews last chapter. They keep me going, because life is hard sometimes and it's good to know other people know I exist! :D**

* * *

In the dream, he was dancing slowly around the kitchen with Kurt. It was late at night, and the only source of light was the blue fluorescent numbers on the oven. Their footsteps swooshed one-two, one-two...and Blaine thought there should be music. Even in the dream, Kurt felt insubstantial, slipping away...and when Blaine woke up, he was alone, and he felt it.

He got the call when he was downtown with Santana, watching the Christmas decorations being put up at Rockefeller center. They were grinning and elbowing each other and laughing like middle-school girls, and Blaine remembered being happier than he had been in years, even though Kurt wasn't there. Because he was sure he would be. It would only be a few days before he got on a flight back to New York.

Blaine picked up his phone unthinkingly. "Hey Kurt."

"This is Kurt's dad," said the voice on the other end.

Blaine froze.

"Hold on," he said, "let me find somewhere quiet..." He walked to a sheltered corner of the square and held a mittened hand over his ear. "Okay. Hi, Mr. Hummel."

"I don't know who you are," the man said gruffly. "Kurt wouldn't tell me. But he said I had to call because he couldn't handle it."

Blaine squinted. "Did something-?"

"Kurt's brother died this weekend," said Burt. "And Kurt doesn't know when he'll be back."

Blaine's blood turned to slush and for a moment he saw the future spin in front of him, dizzying and over-colored, like the guts of a carnival ride.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed.

The line was quiet. Then Burt said, "Listen here. I don't know how you know Kurt, but you seem to mean a lot to him. You take care of my son."

"I will," Blaine said.

"I believe you," said Burt.

But Blaine wasn't taking care of Kurt, because he hadn't heard from him in days. He tried calling, but Kurt never picked up. Blaine wasn't there to comfort him, to assure him it wasn't his fault, to let him know he would always be there, no matter what his grief looked like. And Blaine was alone too. He had never felt so alone.

People said love was like fire, that it burned and also gave life, but Blaine never really thought so. It was more like warm energy, a soul unplaced. And Kurt was the first person he ever truly loved. He never realized how empty his life was until Kurt came into it and went right back out.

He sat up in bed, his dream fading away like wispy smoke. It was almost light outside, and he wanted to go to Lima. He didn't need a plane, a car, a bike. He'd make it if he had to walk.

He ground his palms into his eyes, stretched his shoulders. He glanced at the empty space next to him - it wasn't really an empty space, since he had a twin bed - but Kurt had fit there before. He distracted himself for a minute with the thought of buying a bigger bed - it was like he was still at Dalton. The amount of times he apologized to his high school boyfriend for _oh, ouch, god, sorry, these damn beds_.

Having a boyfriend didn't feel easy in high school. Blaine felt like he was Atlas, the weight of the world constantly on his shoulders. It was so much work, balancing homework and Jaime and his dreams. He actually thought adult life would be a relief, and it was in some ways. But high school was what people said it was - a shade of the real thing. His relationship with Jaime was fun. They got in trouble and had too much sex. Saying goodbye wasn't hard, since they both knew their relationship was temporary. And as demanding as Dalton was, it was nothing like NYADA.

In New York, in love with someone completely unreachable, Blaine understood what it was really like for Atlas.

He flicked his phone to life and stared at the screen vacantly. Then he did something he hadn't done in months.

_3:55 a.m._

_You still up? - B_

A few minutes passed. He set his phone on his chest and stared at the ceiling. It buzzed.

_4:01 a.m._

_We promised we wouldn't do this - J_

_4:02 a.m._

_Considering I'm about to ask you for advice about my new boyfriend, I think we're safe. No backsliding involved. - B_

_4:04 a.m._

_Oh, so now getting with me would be backsliding? - J_

_4:04 a.m._

_Wipe the grin off your face. It's obvious even through texting. - B_

_4:06 a.m._

_Officially wiped. Why are you up this late? - J_

_4:06 a.m._

_Why are you? - B_

_4:08 a.m._

_Econ homework :( - J_

_4:09 a.m._

_Still glad your dad talked you into business school? - B_

_4:10 a.m._

_Still glad you took out thousands in student loans to afford NYADA? - J_

_4:10 a.m._

_Hey, I'm a celebrity here - B_

_4:11 a.m._

_~Fuck me I'm a celebrity, can't take your hands of me~_ _- J_

_4:12 a.m._

_Classiest song ever - B_

_4:13 a.m._

_Almost like Pachelbel's Canon - J_

_4:13 a.m._

_You psycho - B_

_4:15 a.m._

_Sorry, this econ is frying my brain - J_

_4:16 a.m._

_Can I ask you what I wanted to now? - B_

_4:17 a.m._

_Your charm distracted me. Yes, go ahead. - J_

_4:18 a.m._

_It's a little sad. Actually really sad. Can you handle sad right now? - B_

_4:20 a.m._

_Sad like I need to talk you off a high window ledge? Because you're gorgeous and you should never give up :) - J_

_4:22 a.m._

_I swear to God I'm not flirting. I have an new boyfriend too - J_

_4:26 a.m._

_Did I scare you away? - J_

_4:28 a.m._

_No, you made me cry - B_

_4:30 a.m._

_Sorry - J_

_4:31 a.m._

_No, the good kind of cry - B_

_4:32 a.m._

_Life is really hard sometimes - B_

_4:34 a.m._

_So, what's up? - J_

_4:40 a.m._

_I met this guy at a coffeeshop. I'm a barista and he was a regular, and I always made his coffee. And he had stuff going on in his life and I could tell and I tried to help by writing little notes to him on his coffee cups. And we started to really like each other and he told me what was going on, and it turned out his brother was a drug addict and his boyfriend was a jerk, and he was just sort of lost. And so he broke up with his boyfriend (long story) and came over to my place and *use your imagination* and then the next morning he got a phone call about his brother taking off, and a week ago his brother passed away, and I haven't heard from him at all, and I know his life is way worse than mine right now, but I think I'm in love with him, like the stupid crazy kind of love where I'd ask him to marry me, and he's kind of fragile, and I'm really worried that he's just going to give up and never see me again. And I'm so confused. And alone. - B_

_4:45 a.m._

_I'm sorry. :( - J_

_4:46 a.m._

_He'll talk to you when he pulls himself together. Remember when my gran died and I took it out on you? Maybe he's worried about that and he wants some time to calm down. - J_

_4:47 a.m._

_He's different than you. I don't know how to describe him. It's weird to describe him to you. - B_

_5:01 a.m._

_You can say anything to me. - J_

_5:03 a.m._

_You're my ex. - B_

_5:05 a.m._

_I'm also your friend. - J_

_5:05 a.m._

_Okay. He's a brilliant fashion designer, really good-looking and intelligent and funny...but you know how sometimes people like that have another side? How they're always a little bit crazy if they're that perfect on the outside? He's like that. He breaks down sometimes, and it's like something you'd see in a movie. He turns into a complete hurricane that nobody can get a handle on. And I could see him doing that now. - B_

_5:06 a.m._

_Do you think he'll hurt himself? - J_

_5:06 a.m._

_No - B_

_5:08 a.m._

_Maybe - B_

_5:09 a.m._

_This is going to sound arrogant, but I think I'm the only one that understands him and knows what to say, and I feel like things could go really wrong if I'm not with him. - B_

_5:10 a.m._

_Do you know where he is? - J_

_5:11 a.m._

_He's in Lima. - B_

_5:12 a.m._

_He's an Ohioan?! - J_

_5:14 a.m._

_It's crazy how close I was to meeting him years ago. He was in New Directions. - B_

_5:14 a.m._

_Really? I thought all the ND guys were straight. - J_

_5:15 a.m._

_He missed the competition because some gorilla broke his arm, so we never saw him. - B_

_5:18 a.m._

_That's too sad. - J_

_5:24 a.m._

_Alright, listen hun: I'm so sorry for what you're going through, but I don't think you should worry yet. I know you probably miss him, so just focus on what it will be like when he realizes he needs you. Because he will realize that. You're easy to need. - J_

_5:30 a.m._

_I miss you sometimes. San's great, but she doesn't like getting involved in anything emotional. - B_

_5:34 a.m._

_I miss you too sometimes. Remember that time Mrs. Figg caught us in the library and we ran so fast we knocked over the entire shelf of Descartes? - J_

_5:37 a.m._

_Or when we broke into the Westerville Country Club and skinny dipped? - B_

_5:38 a.m._

_That security guard got the education of his life that night. - J_

_5:39 a.m._

_He looked like Fudge when Fudge realized Voldemort really was back- B_

_5:41 a.m._

_There's my dork. - J_

_5:42 a.m._

_I mean my ex-dork. - J_

_5:44 a.m._

_Is it bad that I really want to see you right now? - B_

_5:45 a.m._

_No. It's normal. Sometimes I miss you like crazy. - J_

_5:47 a.m._

_I hope everything works out with you and your guy - J_

_5:50 a.m._

_Me too. - B_

_5:51 a.m._

_Thanks for talking to me. - B_

_5:52 a.m._

_I'm here if you need me. Unless my econ book sucks me into the Chamber of Secrets. - J_

_5:54 a.m._

_I'll send Fawkes if that ever happens. Love you, you silly bastard. - B_

Blaine clicked his phone off, feeling slightly better, and realized he was going to be late for work. He forced himself out of bed and got dressed, and thought about Jaime the whole way to Manhattan. He had a great relationship with Jaime when the were together, and he still did. It was simple. God, he missed simple.

* * *

Santana was in a honey-badger mood. She'd missed her train to school, and as a consequence, walked into improvisation class late and was immediately picked as a volunteer. And the scene partner? Rodney, a squat redhead with a nasally voice and a love of card tricks. Santana could barely tolerate partnering with him, but when he followed her to the NYADA coffee shop and asked her to pull a coin out of his ear, she erupted.

"I don't have time for wannabe Houdinis! I don't have time for real Houdinis! Because other than my unicorn roommate, magic doesn't exist. I'm tired of people like you thinking you can get away from the _real_ because the real is chasing you like a scaly dragon and when you turn around to meet it, all you'll have in your hands is a fake wand, and the only magic you'll be hoping for after that is a nice soapy bath, because you'll have messed yourself!"

Rodney looked at Santana, bottom lip trembling. He scuttled away. Santana garnered a few nasty looks from around the coffee shop, and she left without getting her drink. She strutted down the street, glaring at everyone she met, and wound up in the subway station late again. She wandered around, waiting for her train, and noticed a poster.

_MIT CALCULUS GALA_

_MCCORMICK HALL_

_BLACK TIE EVENT_

_OCTOBER 1, 8:00 PM_

Under the words, there was a picture of students holding parts to a model rocket. The one holding the fuselage was Brit.

Santana gripped her arms around herself and stared at the tiny picture, then ripped the poster down and walked away. But there was more than one poster.

She had been stupid to get involved with Brit at all. She should have waited until New York. But Blaine was always running off with Jaime and leaving her by herself, and she had no one to talk to, and Brit was a gleaming gold goddess with no sense of danger.

Santana met Blaine at Dalton. She had tried to pull of some _She's the Man _style shit, but it didn't work for long because she didn't, in any circumstance, look like a boy. And she _really_ wished she hadn't slept with her dad's plastic surgeon friend and received free implants, because hiding C-cups was not as simple as hiding B-cups.

Blaine ran into her the second week in the locker rooms, and she screamed at him in Spanish and threatened to rob him if he told the board she was a girl. He just stood and stared at her in his sophomore-year frizzy-haired glory and mouthed one word - _Mulan_. Then he skittered out of the locker rooms.

Blaine never told the board, but he did try to make friends with Santana, who continually rebuffed him. She thought he was into her, and wouldn't exchange a word with him until she witnessed him making out with a guy at a Dalton mixer.

"Hey unicorn," she whispered, passing him in the hall.

"Hi Mulan," he whispered back.

It took Santana a while to tell Blaine that she came to Dalton because she was terrified of acting on lesbian impulses and wanted to be around all guys. It took Blaine a while to tell her that he came to Dalton after he'd been beaten up.

It was right before Thanksgiving that Santana got caught. The board unanimously agreed to kick her out, but Blaine's parents (after being convinced she was Blaine's pregnant girlfriend) agreed to let her stay with them.

Blaine had already come out to them, but he told them he was trying to follow their wishes by sleeping with a girl, and what did he know that girls got pregnant? He was only sixteen. His parents were ecstatic that he was normal after all, and they said she could stay. Mrs. Anderson even bought pregnancy vitamins and some maternity wear.

Santana would take long walks to get away from the Andersons constant fighting - _Did you call the Mayburry Foundation and donate? No, Victor, I was having my nails done! _- and one day ran into Brittany at the park. She was sitting on the swing, dragging her feet through the wood chips.

"You alright there?" Santana had asked.

"If you draw a line enough times, you can see the cosmos," Brittany replied, smiling widely at Santana. Then she'd taken Santana's hand and tugged her down to the reservoir, where she braided flowers into her hair. It was like a day out of a children's book, or an alternate universe.

Brittany was unlike anyone Santana had ever met - she occupied her own time and space, like a polka-dot umbrella taken by the wind. And Santana was the first person she'd ever let into that world. At first Santana thought she was taking advantage of Brittany - what did Brittany know about adult relationships? She talked to inchworms and ate spaghetti with a straw. Then one day, in the middle of a discussion about Lord Tubbington's smoking problem, Brittany said, "You're my girlfriend, right? Because I want to kiss you."

Sometimes Santana still wondered if she had been right to kiss Brittany that day. But she kissed her, and they'd gone from there. Her life with the Andersons turned into a wild hiding game. She stuffed pillows under her shirt to look pregnant. She held hands with Blaine, and Jaime held hands with Brit. It all held up until one gloomy night at the theater. The Andersons had walked in to find Jaime in Blaine's lap and Santana in Brittany's - and the charade came crashing down. Blaine got disinherited, Jaime got KO'd by Mr. Anderson, and Santana was thrown out.

After that, she and Blaine stayed with Brittany, and Jaime was there a lot of the time too. Brittany's only family was her overworked dad, and he didn't care what the four of them did. Their final two years of high school were a blur of swimming pools, fireflies, broken bike tires, popcorn, paper angels...Brittany's imaginary world had kidnapped them all, and graduation day was a long fall back to reality.

As Santana stared at the MIT posters, she remembered that falling feeling too well. She had told Brittany she didn't really love her. That she wasn't really a lesbian. That it was all a stupid daydream. And then she left without saying goodbye.

In the cold subway station, Santana's heart jumped before her brain could stop it, and she ran to the ticket counter. She purchased a one-way ticket to Boston for that night, and went home to pack.

* * *

"What do you mean you 'had to go to Boston?'" demanded Blaine, his phone crooked into his shoulder while he cooked breakfast.

"I have things to do in Boston!" shouted Santana on the other end of the line. It sounded windy where she was. "I'll be back in two days!"

"There's something you're not telling me," said Blaine. "Isn't MIT in Boston?"

Santana didn't respond.

"I knew it," said Blaine. "San, hey, we're best friends! Why didn't you talk to me about this?"

"Because it's a bad idea, and you're the only person I listen to, and you would have convinced me not to go!" She sighed. "I had to see her."

"It's kind of weird timing," said Blaine, pouring frothy eggs into a pan.

"Why?" asked Santana.

"Because I've been talking to Jaime again."

"What? Why would you do that?"

"Hey now. You're going to see Brit-"

"You have a boyfriend!"

"We're just being friendly."

"You aren't ever just _friendly_ with someone you've slept with."

"He has a boyfriend, too," Blaine went on. "It's totally platonic between us. And I've slept with enough people after him to counteract his effects on me."

"Slutty phases don't counteract anything except self-esteem," snapped Santana. "And you have a boyfriend."

"I know, San!" shouted Blaine. "I get it!"

"I'm not bailing you out when everything goes to hell," she warned. "I have to go now."

Blaine hung up and rubbed his face. OK, so maybe it _wasn't_ completely platonic. Maybe Jaime had texted him that morning and said _I miss seeing your crazy hair when I wake up. _Maybe he'd written back that he missed finding Aeropostale boxers underneath his bed.

Blaine loved Kurt, but he'd always been good at separating love and sex. Would it really be that bad if he slept with Jaime...? What if Kurt didn't show up for another two months...?

His phone buzzed.

_7:40 a.m. _

_Bubblegum ice cream - J_

_7:41 a.m._

_I want bubblegum ice cream - J_

_7:42 a.m._

_Remember stealing the Dalton ice cream cart? - J_

_8:01 a.m. _

_The more I talk to you, the more I think I deserved to be expelled - B_

_8:03 a.m._

_We were the Fred and George of Dalton - J_

_8:04 a.m._

_Jaime - Fred and George were brothers, not lovers, and one of them died - B_

_8:05 a.m._

_Oh. Then we're the Ginny and Harry of Dalton? :) - J_

_8:06 a.m._

_Oh, you're such a Ginny. Yes. - B_

Blaine realized his omelet was smoking, and that he'd set his elbow right in the butter dish. He threw his phone onto the counter, annoyed, and tried to salvage his breakfast, but couldn't, so he ate an apple instead. He went and changed his shirt, and decided to go on a long walk around Brooklyn, sans-phone.

He started out by walking to Prospect Park. He felt sure something was wrong, something beyond Finn's death. He couldn't think of a reason that Kurt wouldn't call. Kurt hadn't been embarrassed to cry and scream and be human around Blaine before. Was the human part of him broken now? Trampled under a thousand stomping hooves?

Blaine thought he might break down if he didn't say everything he was feeling, but it was like being in a dream where he couldn't scream. He tried to scream, needed to scream, but he couldn't. The muscles in his throat just wouldn't get in line. They twitched and twitched under his skin, but still he couldn't scream, and soon it would be too late.

He couldn't get Kurt's face out of his mind. It flashed on his eyelids like a mirage, and sometimes the smile turned cruel and mocking.

_You really thought this was it, didn't you? Stupid boy. You'll never see me again..._

* * *

Santana was annoyed at the lack of bathrooms. She had stress-drunk four cups of coffee, and desperately needed to pee. But there were about a thousand math geeks in between her and the nearest bathroom. They were all busy talking about derivatives and limits and theta this and theta that. She was in a sea of Sheldons, and not one of them would move out of her way.

She swore quietly to herself and made to leave when she caught a flash of blonde hair.

"San?" Brittany said softly, walking up to her with a clipboard in her hands. "What are you doing here? Are you a math snail?"

"A math - a math snail?"

Brittany drew a spiral pattern in the air with her finger, then frowned. "No. You're not."

Santana stared momentarily, and then she shoved a bag of pastries into Brittany's free hand. "I got these for you. They're strawberry. Your favorite. It's a present. For getting into MIT and being smart."

Brittany grinned. "You got these for me? Aw, San."

The two girls looked at each other for a moment. Santana shifted on her feet.

"Look, Brit, if you have a chance to talk...I'd like to talk."

"I can talk now," said Brittany.

"Don't you have a speech or something?"

"Speeches aren't real," said Brittany. She handed the clipboard to a perplexed-looking young man, and then took Santana's hand. "Let's go outside."

"It's snowing," grumbled Santana as they stepped into the courtyard.

"If you stand in the snow long enough, one of the snowflakes that hits you will turn into a fairy, and you'll have the power to control it and spy on the Bolivian government-"

"Look Brit." Santana turned to face Brittany and tightened her grip on her hand. "This is a serious conversation. I need you to listen."

"I'm always listening," Brittany said with a shrug.

"I want to say...I'm sorry. What I did to you was wrong."

"You were just scared," said Brittany.

Santana stared into Brittany's clear blue eyes, confused that she wasn't being yelled at. She thought she would get closure by talking to Brit, because she assumed Brit would be angry. But Brit was too sweet and pure to be angry, or at least to show it, and here Santana was once more, unsure if she was taking advantage.

Of all the things she felt guilty about, she felt the guiltiest for letting Brittany out into the world without protection. Brittany gave all her love and never asked for anything in return, and if she met the wrong person, what would happen to her?

"Brittany, I -" But Santana couldn't continue. She burst into tears.

Brittany led her over to a low, mossy wall and they sat down. Santana rested her head against Brittany's chest and cried and cried, and Brittany gently rubbed her temple.

Inside, the loudspeakers repeated themselves. "Brittany S. Pierce, please report for speech!" "Last call for Brittany S. Pierce!"

But speeches weren't real.

* * *

Blaine was almost to the other edge of Prospect Park when he saw her - Rachel, in a raspberry-pink coat, sitting on a bench. He wasn't sure if he should go up to her. There was something dayglow and sacred about her.

But she might know about Kurt, and he couldn't resist. He went up tentatively.

"Rachel?"

Her eyes flashed open. "Oh. Hi Blaine." She scooted over and patted the bench. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," he said, sitting next to her. "I hope you're doing okay."

"I'm managing," she said. "How's Kurt?"

He squinted. "What do you mean?"

"Kurt," she repeated. "Is he holding up?"

"I - I don't know." Blaine frowned. "I haven't seen him."

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't seen him in a week," said Blaine.

"No, he - he went over to your house last night, when we got back from the airport."

"No he didn't," said Blaine. He felt like his mouth was full of metal scraps. "What do you mean?

Rachel stared at him, tears forming in her heavy eyes.

"What do _you_ mean?" she squeaked.

"I thought he was with you," he breathed. "I thought..."

They stared at each other.

* * *

**A/N:**

**So this chapter happened. **

**In case you're concerned - no, the same thing that happened to Finn will not happen to Kurt. And ****no, Blaine is not still in love with Jaime.**

**But hey! From what you read, would the Santana/Blaine/Brit/Jaime storyline make a good fic? ****(Kurt would replace Jaime I think. I can't write a serious fic if it's not a Klaine fic.) ****But really, I'm thinking about writing it - would you guys read it?**

**Thanks for continued support and reviews! **


	9. Catch Me

**Just to set up the timeline - the events in this chapter all happen DURING the events of the last chapter. So while Blaine is talking to Jaime and while Santana's with Brittany, this is what's happening with Kurt. It starts the day after Finn dies.**

* * *

Day 1

The first thing Kurt saw in the morning was pills. White, circular pills spilling over the countertop. It was an image from a quickly-fading dream, a dream about his childhood. When his mom was in her last days, her muscle coordination was faulty. She knocked over things constantly, and once she'd knocked her new bottle of medicine off the counter.

_Get him out of here! I don't want him to see me like this! Burt, he can't see me like this!_

Kurt had been standing in the doorway of her hospital room, wearing overalls and clutching a huge stuffed bear. His mother was looking at him in a way she never had before. She was afraid of him, afraid of a spindly, heavy-eyed child.

She died three days after that. To this day, Kurt heard her words. _Get him out of here! He can't see my like this!_

But he had seen her like that, and he hadn't forgotten. It was all so stupid. Hide frailty. Hide fragility. Be ashamed of being human. People hid themselves until they melted away like soap, and they slipped out of the hands of the ones who loved them the most.

When did it happen? When did a little boy decide that _he _was the one who couldn't have what he wanted? That _he_ was the one who wouldn't be loved? That _he_ was the remainder?

The tendency to push the gentle hands away and say _no, I'm fine. I don't need anything_. How stupid. How desperately stupid and fatal.

But it seemed immutable, in human cells. Nothing but that could make a woman deny her little boy in her last days, make a brother take his own life, or make a young man get out of his childhood bed and swallow back his grief for his friend's sake.

"Rachel," Kurt said softly, shaking her shoulder. "Rachel, you need to get up."

Rachel was asleep on the couch in Kurt's room. Her cheeks were warpainted with mascara.

He shook her again. "Rachel? I have tea for you in the kitchen."

She opened her eyes. Her shoulders crackled under the smooth pink fabric of her shirt. Then she blinked and looked up at Kurt.

"I'm just going to stay here a while, Kurt," she said, the corners of her mouth puckering like she wanted to cry. "I can't be downstairs with everything else."

"We're the only ones here," he said. "Carole went to stay with her mom. Dad's dropping her off."

Rachel sat up. "Why are they gone? We should, we should all be together, we should..."

"You just said you wanted to be alone," said Kurt.

"Why are they gone?" she repeated. "We're the only - the only family Finn had! And we're all...we're..."

"We have to let Carole do what she needs to do," said Kurt softly. "He was her...he was her son."

Rachel swallowed and nodded. Then she looked at Kurt fiercely. "Don't treat me any differently than you usually do. I won't be able to handle it."

Kurt nodded and waited for her to pull on a robe. They went downstairs together. Kurt poured two cups of tea and they sat in the living room, near the windows that looked out on the road. He thought about waiting in those chairs every Thanksgiving and peeking out the windows to see guests pull into the driveway. He remembered being warm and excited and in love with his family because no one had shown him why he shouldn't be.

"When are you going back to New York?" asked Rachel.

"I haven't thought about it," said Kurt, tucking his feet up in the chair. "I think I'll stay here with Dad for a little while."

Rachel nodded, her gaze fixed across the room. Kurt drank his tea and the silence grew louder and louder, until it was deafening, overwhelming. Would his mind always be so boggy? So gray and weighed down?

He cleared his throat. "Rach." She didn't respond. "Rachel."

She looked up.

"I'm sorry," his said, his voice at its quietest.

She stared at him. Then she sucked her cheeks in and burst out, "I'm sorry, too! Oh God, Kurt! Oh, God, it's just too horrible! It's too horrible!" She clapped her hands over her mouth and tried to catch her breath, but she couldn't and she started to shake. She finally tucked her chin against her chest, and she stayed like this for several minutes, rocking slightly.

Kurt pulled her to her feet after a moment and hugged her, and she cried violently in his arms; he smoothed her hair out of her face.

"It's going to be okay. We're going to be okay..."

But Rachel kept shaking her head, and Kurt couldn't help thinking she was right.

* * *

Day 2

"I - I don't want him cremated," said Rachel. She gripped her glass of orange juice tightly, knuckles white. "I just can't imagine him like that. He was too full of life."

She was sitting at the Hummel-Hudson dinner table with Carole, Burt and Kurt.

"His body's not...not really in good condition," said Kurt, staring down at the table. "I think it would feel...more natural...if we put his ashes somewhere he really loved."

"But it's...it's Finn. And ash is...ash."

Carole sniffled. "I agree with Rachel. I kept Mark's ashes right in the living room." She pointed above the fireplace and took a hard breath. "And I can't see F-Fin there. I can't see my boy there."

Burt put his arm around Carole, eyes bleak.

"He doesn't have to be there," said Kurt softly. "He could be anywhere. In the wind."

Carole nodded. "You're - you're right that his body's...body's not..." She took a deep breath. "His body isn't in good enough condition."

"We could have a closed-casket service," said Rachel.

"I don't want to see my brother in a box," said Kurt.

Burt cleared his throat. "You two...you two can take a break if you want. You don't have to talk about this at all if you don't want to."

"We need to talk about this," said Kurt. "And I need to be here, because Finn wouldn't want to be buried. I know he wouldn't. He told me on one of those insufferable bus rides to Nationals. We were talking about what we wanted done when we died, and he said something about being thrown out of a plane in Alaska. But then he said that he wanted to be cremated, because..." Kurt's voice weakened and rose to a breaking point. "...because ash looks like snow. He said it looks like snow, and you can throw it up in the air and just let it drift away."

Burt stared at his son for a long time. Then he nodded.

"Rachel," he said," we know how much Finn meant to you. But-"

"We'll do what Finn wanted," said Rachel. "If he wanted to be cremated, that's what we'll do."

Carole nodded. "It's settled."

Burt made the calls. The funeral director asked them to come and sign some paperwork, and they all got in the car and made the drive. It was icy and cold, and Rachel and Kurt snuggled close in the back of the car. With the heat blasting, they couldn't hear Burt and Carole.

"Do you think Kurt's going to be okay?" Carole asked bravely, glancing at Kurt's reflection in the rearview. "He seems so different."

"I think it's a good different," said Burt. "I never mentioned it, but he broke up with Malcolm." He shook his head. "I remember tucking that boy in only a few years ago." He checked the mirror too, and saw Kurt lean his head against Rachel's. "I'm proud of him. It sounds a little weird to say it about Kurt, but he's a good guy. He's a good man."

Carole nodded, then started to cry.

"Oh, oh Care - I'm sorry," said Burt. "Carole, I'm sorry."

"Oh it's not you, it's not you, Burt," she said, reaching into the glove compartment for a Kleenex. "Of course it's not you. It's that...that Finn was a good man, too, and now I'm afraid no one will ever see him that way. He was a good man, Burt! He was a good man too..."

* * *

Day 3

"Do you want to sing something?" Kurt asked, looking over the letter from Finn - he hadn't showed it to Rachel yet, and wasn't sure he would.

"I don't think I could get through it," said Rachel.

They were sitting in the Lima Bean. Kurt had insisted they didn't isolate themselves, though all either of them felt like doing was curling up on the floor of the shower. Rachel was thankful for Kurt's resilience, but also suspicious of it, and she kept picturing a fragile clay face, crumbling unexpectedly.

"I don't know if I want a memorial at all," she said.

Kurt stared at her. "We have to have a memorial."

"No, we don't," she said. "We don't have to do anything. I think the less we do the..."

"Easier it'll be to move on?" asked Kurt. "It won't be."

"It's not just your choice, Kurt! I want to go back to New York and try to forget the last five years of my life, because if I start thinking about what I had with him, I'll never stop thinking about it! I'll never be the same!"

"You already aren't the same," said Kurt. "Nothing will ever be the same, and running away isn't going to change that. It happened."

Rachel shook her head, tears falling, and then fixed Kurt with a hard stare. "I hear what you're saying, but I don't believe it. I don't believe _you_, because this is what you do. You act really, really strong until something cracks."

"What do you want Rach?" Kurt asked dully.

"I want," she said, voice in and out, "to see you cry. I want to see you ask for help."

Kurt looked at the letter in his lap, hurt, worn out.

"I cried when I found him," he said. "I cried all day in the hospital and I thought I'd never stop. But I don't feel like that anymore. I don't feel anything."

They were both quiet for a moment, thumbing over the lids of their untouched drinks. Then Rachel sniffled and said, "Kurt, do you think he knew what he was doing?"

Kurt stared at the letter. _I'm taking myself out. It's what you do in football when you bring everybody else down._ He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come up. They were too thick, too hot, and they stuck in his throat.

"I'm sure it was an accident," he said.

* * *

Day 4

The funeral director asked if they would like to see Finn's body for a last time. They were all standing in the small crematory lobby, bundled up in winter clothes.

Carole nodded silently, then Rachel. They went in together. Kurt was left looking at his father.

"You don't want to see him?" asked Burt.

Kurt stared at the door Carole and Rachel had gone through. It was ordinary. Nothing about it suggested what was behind it...

He didn't know how to answer. Everything was dust. His mouth was dust, his mind was dust. He couldn't think at all. His world was blank and spinning, and there was nothing he could latch onto to place himself, to steady himself. Was he falling?

"You don't think you can?" Burt asked.

Kurt forced himself to shake his head. "I can. I just don't want to see Rachel's face. Or Carole's."

"Then just...just look at him." Burt cleared his throat. "We should go in."

Kurt nodded, and they walked quickly through the door. Finn was lying on a table, in jeans and a flannel shirt that Carole had picked out. Carole was quietly smoothing his hair. Rachel was sitting next to the table, her hands braced on her knees, her jaw tight to keep back what she felt.

Finn's expression was strange, and it was impossible to know if it resulted from his last conscious thought or from his death. His hands were folded in a way he never would have folded them - strangely proper and too patient. The only thing that fit him were his feet, jutting off the end of the table, just like they jutted off the end of his twin bed...

Kurt saw for the first time that it was _Finn. _It was _Finn_ lying on that table. His brother. His gangly and gawky brother, the one with the bad timing, the one who couldn't dance, the one who would say what other's wouldn't say. The quarterback. His superman.

Kurt suddenly felt feverish and out-of-sorts. His brother's face was going in and out, like a faulty circuit, and his mother's face was filling in the gaps. They were both reaching for him, asking for him. _Why did you let us go? Why did you let us go away? _and he was screaming back, _I couldn't save you! I tried to save you! I swear I tried! _The air was slipping out of the room in a steady hiss, and soon it would fill with smoke and they would all burn. Why shouldn't they all burn? What was left for them?

_I tried to tell you. I tried to tell you I loved you. I tried to tell you I needed you..._

Kurt felt someone touch his shoulder and he looked around. Burt had steadied him.

"You okay?" asked Burt.

Rachel and Carole were both staring at him. Burt's voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel.

He nodded, swallowing back the urge to be sick, and they all filed out of the room.

By the time they reached the parking lot, it had started to snow. The cold was a shock, and it brought Kurt back to himself for a moment. He and Rachel put their arms around each other as smoke started to stream from the chimney of the crematory.

Kurt watched the smoke turn blue in the cold air, and wondered if Finn, somewhere, knew it was snowing and what he would have said.

He hadn't thought much about where Finn was at all. He didn't believe in God, not the kind of God most people thought of anyway. The closest he'd ever felt to spiritual was when he was looking up at the stars.

When he was little, he believed stars were souls. Souls watching over all, souls the whole world could see. And he believed his mom's soul was among them. When he was a little older, he wondered if lifetimes were like starlight, if they existed beyond and before when they were visible. Was a star, a life, only alive when it shone?

And was a boy alive only when he breathed?

Kurt remembered the first time he saw the Andromeda Galaxy, the farthest object the human eye can detect. He remembered having to squint - astronomers called it averted vision - to see the pinkish blur that made up the galaxy. He'd wondered about averted vision ever since, and wondered for a moment if everyone had it wrong. Maybe to see what life really meant, you didn't have to dissect it and put it under a microscope, but leave it whole and look in the slightly _wrong_ spot.

He didn't know what it all meant. He didn't know what it meant for Finn. All he knew was that it was snowing, snowflakes like ashes, and he couldn't shake the sense that Finn was in the icy parking lot with him, waiting to catch him if he slipped.

* * *

Day 5

The memorial service was short. Several McKinley teachers were there, along with Noah Puckerman, Quinn Fabray, and Mercedes Jones, who looked as disoriented and broken as Rachel. It was held in the McKinley Glee classroom, and everyone had an opportunity to say something in the front of the room, where they used to sing.

"Anyone who knows me," said Burt, holding his hat in his hands, "knows that I care very much about my son. I've torn into this school more than once on Kurt's behalf. I became a representative on Kurt's behalf. And I yelled at Finn - a lot - on Kurt's behalf. But come on. Finn didn't have a prejudiced bone in his body. I wasn't teaching him a lesson in tolerance, I was teaching myself one, and he was just unlucky enough to be there for it." Burt cleared his throat. "Everything I did for Kurt, Finn did more. He saved his life. I'd be willing to bet he saved a lot of lives. Wherever you are kid, I want you to know that we tried too. We tried to help you. But you were better at it than we were. We'll miss you."

"Finn was," said Mercedes, "the most selfless person I've ever met. He had everything, and he gave it all up for a couple of misfits. He was the first cool kid to be nice to any of us and he was our leader in here. We love you Finn."

"I remember being angry at Finn all the time," said Quinn, "because I knew I couldn't live up to him. He knew what was right, and he was strong enough to do what was right. I've never met someone like him, and I don't think I ever will." She sniffled. "I wish I had treated him better. I wish he had a chance to know Beth, because she would have loved him. She would have loved her Uncle Finn."

"I keep looking at these invitations," said Puck, slapping one against his palm. "Mostly because they aren't up to Hummel's usual perfect standard. But also because of that line. The line between 1994 and 2013. It's his whole life. Everything that happened is in that line." He looked around the room. "It might be short, but Finn was a good person. The best. And that's more important than how long that line is. He was my best friend, probably the only reason I'm not in prison right now. I'll miss him. A lot."

"I had everything planned out," said Rachel. "I love planning things out. I love thinking about the future. I used to lie in bed all the time, thinking about what we would do. Both of us, together." She wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry, but there really aren't words. All I know is that Finn loved all of you, and me, and we loved him. He's only the reason I believe in myself."

"Finn was...a weird kid, said Carole softly. "And I was a weird mom. But it worked, just the two of us. I wouldn't have known what to do without him. I _don't_ know what to do without him." She took a breath. "I can't stop being a parent, even though he's gone. And it still doesn't feel real. Rachel's right - words aren't enough to convey who Finn was, what he did for all of us. There is no one I'm prouder of than my son."

"One of the last things Finn got to tell me," said Kurt, voice trembling, "was that I taught him everything he knew about being a man. As skeptical as some of you might be - Noah - I think he was telling the truth. And I'm telling the truth when I say he taught me the same thing." Kurt swallowed hard. "We taught each other to be brave, and I know in my heart I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Seeing him come down the hallway wearing this..." Kurt gestured with his jacket, "...it was like superman had arrived. He cared. About all of us. When I went into his room last night, I looked at all the things he had up on his walls. A sonogram picture of a baby that wasn't his. He kept it up, even after he found out the baby wasn't his. Rachel's NYADA acceptance letter. The prom queen poster of Quinn. Puck's Sheets n' Things nametag. And," he almost laughed, "and the x-ray of my broken arm. One time I asked him why he had that, and he said, "Because you always forget how strong you are. I had to save something to remind you in thirty years when you're in a crisis because you found a gray hair or something."" Kurt smiled, eyes filling. "It doesn't matter that I won't see him in thirty years. Of course it's hard. But I'll never forget him. He's part of me. He was my brother."

* * *

Day 6

When Kurt went into his room, he found Rachel packing. She looked up just long enough to press her lips into an apologetic line.

"You don't have to be sorry," Kurt said quietly, sitting down on his creaky bed. "I'm going home, too."

"What?" she asked. "Soon?"

He nodded. "It's too small here. I see him everywhere I look."

Rachel set aside a sweater she was folding.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she whispered. "I don't have F-Fin, I don't have NYADA... at least you still have your career, and someone you love, and..."

Kurt knew what she was trying to say, but it wasn't true. His heart had gone from everything he cared about, like ink washing into a pool. He couldn't face Brooklyn, and he couldn't face Blaine, so he would wash away too. He would go to a place where there was no color, no hope, nothing that would make him believe in life again. It might be beautiful, but it ended, and that was just too far to fall.

* * *

Day 7

Burt hugged Kurt goodbye at the door, his face tense and ruddy.

"I really wish you weren't leaving so soon, Kurt."

"I can't be in Lima right now," said Kurt. He glanced over his shoulder at Rachel, who was waiting near the car. "And she needs me."

"You could both stay here," said Burt. "You could stay here, and we could all support each other. It's what families do, Kurt."

Burt and Kurt had gone back and forth like this all morning.

"I have a job, a whole life in New York, and I can't just-"

"Those things aren't as important as your family!"

"But he's gone!" Kurt said fiercely. "He's gone and all I can do here is remember him! I did my part. I supported him for years and came running when something happened. I'm not going to do the same thing for his memory."

Burt looked at his son intently. He nodded. "You have to do what you think is right."

Kurt hugged him and got in the car with Rachel. They rolled down their windows and called their love to Burt before driving away.

Kurt took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat.

"What happens if you crash a rental car?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Rachel. "Why?"

"My hands are shaking," he admitted. "I don't know if I'll ever see this place again."

"Why do you say that?"

Kurt hesitated. "Because I don't want to. I never want to come to Lima again."

Rachel glanced out the window at the passing houses and said, "I don't think I do either."

"Whatever happens in New York," Kurt said softly, "I won't mean any of it. We can only help each other so much before..."

"Before something has to give," whispered Rachel. "I know."

The plane landed in New York six hours later, and Kurt and Rachel got on a train to Brooklyn and stumbled into their tiny apartment. It was late, and the apartment was cold.

"You can sleep on the couch if you'd like," said Rachel. "I really wish we didn't have to stay here at all. I'm going to look for a new place."

Kurt looked around the dark living room and bit his lip. "I think I'm going to go to Blaine's, Rach. Are you okay alone?"

She nodded. "I'm fine. Go."

Kurt smiled at her and went back outside. The murky orange sky seemed to extend all the way to the street, and he felt small and suffocated. He pulled his bag close against his body and set off down Bleaker Street. He had no intention of going to Blaine's. He didn't have any sense at all of where he was going, and he didn't want one. He wanted to wander, wander into trouble; he wanted the city to take him away, to conceal him, to make it as if he had never lived a day before this one.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Songs for this chapter: **

**Smoke - Daughter**

**Into Dust - Mazzy Star**

**Born to Die - Lana Del Ray - Covered by Diogo Picarra **

**Just in case you weren't sure, Kurt's not willingly abandoning everybody. He's losing it and he can't help it.**

**Part of my reason for writing this was because I really, really lost it for a time this year, and this fic is helping me explore that experience. I've always really related to Kurt, so I hope I do a good job writing about what its like to go through something impossible.**

**Thanks for any reviews, past, present and future!**


	10. The Quarterback

**Hey readers,**

**I know it's been a long time since an update. I'm sorry! School is taking over my life in a very real way. I'm pre-med and I don't know how to balance crazy science and math classes with my love for writing.**

**Anyway. This chapter is LONG. Bring chocolate and a box of Kleenex. The quotes cred is at the end. :)**

* * *

**Part 1**

Day 1

_**The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.**_

It isn't easy to fall asleep in a train station. Even in the dark hours, when the announcements no longer blare, when the footsteps are sporadic and timid, it's hard to fall asleep. It might even be the absence of light and noise that makes it so hard. Everything is gray and hushed when it should be alive, when it should be a place of leaving and returning.

Kurt thought about this, head propped up on his backpack, as he tried to drift off. It had been three days since he left New York - by this time, Rachel and Blaine had probably deduced that something was wrong - and he still didn't know where he was going. Or that's what he told himself, because in the back of his mind he did know.

A current was pulling him relentlessly back to Ohio - not to Lima, not to his family, but to Lake Hope, where he and Finn were supposed to go to see the stars. It would be painful without Finn, maybe too painful, but it was the only place he could think to go.

He felt tremendously guilty for leaving Blaine and Rachel, but they weren't as important as reconciling the life and loss of his brother. Rachel was in her own hell, he was sure, and wouldn't really notice he was gone. But Blaine would. Kurt thought about calling him and saying that he was too hurt to be in love with anyone at the moment, but he knew Blaine wouldn't believe him. He would insist on supporting Kurt's grief, bringing him dinner, taking long walks...

It was endlessly appealing. Sometimes Kurt missed Blaine so much that his stomach ached for hours. He'd nearly turned back twice. But he needed to face what happened or he never would. He couldn't have his grief bubbling back up in the future. As much as it hurt, it was for Blaine's sake...it was for his and Blaine's future.

He hoped Blaine understood. He knew what he'd say - _I could have helped you through this. We could have gone through this together_. But Blaine didn't know Finn, and Kurt was tired of comfort, as much as he may have needed it. _Just don't abandon me,_ he thought. _Don't think I abandoned you. Don't sleep with anyone, because that would break my heart, even though I'd understand. Hang on for me...just a little...just a week..._

Something about losing Finn made Kurt sure that he wanted to be with Blaine, forever if he could, and lying alone in a train station, knowing Blaine was pacing back and forth in his tiny apartment, their tiny apartment, trying to sleep in his twin bed, their twin bed...

Kurt wanted to cry, for Finn, for Blaine, for the grief itself. And he wanted to rage. _I'm not this helpless. I'm not this human. I'm not this close to giving in... _But mostly he wanted to sleep, and he couldn't, hadn't for a week now, and the exhaustion was filling up his body like cold bathwater.

He thought about Isabelle. About Vogue. About his dreams of being a world-famous fashion designer and a Broadway baby to boot. How childish. If he had access to his precious closet right now, he thought he might burn it. He wasn't some silicone model that things couldn't happen to. Things _had_ happened to him, things that made it eminently clear that humans were just fragile bodies with fragile minds.

He fell asleep an hour later, his hand hanging over the side of the blue vinyl bench, like he was expecting someone to take it.

* * *

Day 2

_**I don't feel sad. I don't feel anything.**_

_**It's a filthy world we live in.**_

_**It's a filthy goddamn helpless world.**_

Kurt woke with a start, ears ringing. He looked around the train station. Early commuters were shuffling around, reaching for coffee. A voice, alarmingly close, snapped, "Sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave."

Kurt looked around wildly, and his gaze fell on a stiff-necked security guard. "No, no," he mumbled. "I'm getting on a train."

The guard laughed. "Do you have the money for that?"

Kurt bristled and got to his feet. He brushed past the guard and went outside to wait for the train to Pittsburgh. He was struck with the outrageous desire to smoke a cigarette - something he'd always refused to try, even though it was so popular with the Vogue interns. Still groggy and recovering from a strange dream, he marched back into the train station and purchased a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. When he got back outside, he opened the pack and pulled one out. He examined it for a moment. The tobacco was more golden than he expected, the smell stronger than he thought it would be. He held it between his second and third fingers and lit it.

"It helps if you breathe in at the same time."

Kurt jumped and turned around. A young man with dark brown hair smiled at him.

"Not in the mood," was all Kurt said, and he turned back around and continued to fiddle with the cigarette.

The man walked up to face him. "Really. It does help." He held out his hand. "I'm Elliot."

Kurt looked at him warily before shaking his hand. "Kurt."

"Here," said Elliot, taking the lighter out of Kurt's hand and lighting the cigarette as he breathed in. "That better?"

"That's -" Kurt coughed "-that's disgusting."

Elliot grinned. "Satisfying though, isn't it?"

Kurt coughed again. "Not really. No. I don't like drugs. It's part of my job to stay healthy."

"Model. Thought so."

"I'm not a model. I'm a fashion designer. And let me tell you - it's not part of a model's job to stay healthy."

"Why is it part of yours?"

"Because I keep crazy hours," said Kurt. "Because I have to be ready for anything."

"I don't mean to make assumptions, but you look a little blindsided at the moment."

"It's been a bad week," Kurt said. Then he sighed."It's like I'm watching an endless movie of the worst day of my life. I can't get out of it. I can't stop thinking about it." He paused. "You know, when someone dies, you find yourself picking up the phone to call them, and then you remember they're gone. You live like they're still alive, but they're always slightly out of reach. Even in your head, they aren't who they really were...and you'll never get who they really were back. They're gone, and a shadow of them sticks with you, and you can't run away from it."

It was a while before Elliot answered. "Sometimes what's in your head is more real than anything else," he said quietly. "Maybe how you think about someone after they're gone...maybe that is who they are."

"That's frightening."

"I think it's reassuring," said Elliot. He glanced up at an approaching train. "That one's mine. It was interesting meeting you, Kurt."

"You're going to New York?" Kurt called after him.

Elliot turned. "Yeah. Brooklyn."

"Could you give my boyfriend a message?"

* * *

Day 3

_**I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.**_

Kurt didn't know why he opened up to the man on the train platform. He never talked to strangers. It was something his dad said. You can't trust anybody, because everybody wants something. But did that really make them untrustworthy? Did it make everyone a liar? A sneak?

Kurt didn't feel betrayed by Finn, but he did feel betrayed, and it was slowly sinking in that what he felt betrayed by was something much bigger and much more unmanageable than a damaged brother. It was life he felt betrayed by, and he suddenly missed frail, fallen humans who could want things. What kind of crime was wanting something? It was nothing compared to life's crime. Life didn't want anything and was cruel anyway.

But it didn't matter. Kurt wished he could turn his brain off. He was tired of his thoughts. They felt heavy; his mind was weighed down, like a swollen eye. So what if life betrayed him. What was life anyway? It was an abstract thing. A million bits of a million chemicals. It could only be blamed if it had a mind, and so far, Kurt couldn't see that it did.

Rain was beating against the train window, leaves flying. Kurt was holding a cup of coffee in his hands and wondering what it would be like to wear a wedding ring. The train was cold, drafty, and the Pennsylvania scenery didn't make him feel any warmer. Endless drenched farms. Scattered tractors. Claystone cliff faces, popping out of the earth like the sides of oyster shells.

It all felt cold. Kurt tried to convince himself that there were loving families in all the farmhouses, but each house was like a stage for a horror show, and sometimes Kurt would stare in the windows as long as the speeding train allowed him to, and try to sense how much pain had gone on behind the glass.

If he looked at a building long enough, he swore he could sense what had gone on inside. Years ago, when his parents were house hunting, they brought him inside one of the homes for his opinion, and he shook his head and clung to his mother's leg. A few years later, he got curious and looked up the house again. He found out a little boy had died there, drowned in the tub. For days, it was impossible to shake the image of that boy, riding around the hallway on a tricycle and laughing, laughing with a drain plug in his hand.

Elizabeth always said Kurt's imagination was too colorful.

The train jostled as it switched tracks and Kurt lifted his head off the foggy window. He was letting his thoughts go again, go to those dark places that were difficult to find a way back from. He was beginning to terrorize himself. He couldn't help it. The trauma was too much. The loss was too much. His mother was gone, Finn was gone, and without them, he didn't know who he was anymore. What he had, what he loved, who he loved...it was all gone, because he was too damaged to understand it. In a sense, he felt like Finn must have felt. Too broken to interact with society or deserve someone's love.

When Finn decided to wander off into the cold that night, Kurt thought it was because of this. Life must feel desperately sad when you think you don't deserve love. But the longer he sat on the train staring out at the Pennsylvania farms and thinking about longing and life and blame, he realized that it wasn't just that, not by itself. It was feeling undeserving of love but still wanting it, and it was the wanting part that drove Finn out into the storm with a bottle of champagne and a syringe of heroin. Kurt was sure of that.

Kurt knew he couldn't go back to Blaine right now. He was too grief-stricken. Blaine didn't deserve to be infected with that kind of sadness, that kind of despair...

_You can't spend your life waiting. You can't wait until you're perfect to be with someone. If they're the right person, they'll love the parts of you that aren't perfect..._

He wanted to listen to this last fragment of sanity, but the darkness and the terror were overpowering. He was alone and he would always be alone. The last person who accepted the imperfect parts of him was gone.

It was impossible to fight the grief and for the next hour, he looked out the window with tears streaming down his face. None of the other passengers looked at him. He thought this was strange until he remembered how ordinary human sorrow is.

* * *

Day 4

_**What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.**_

Pennsylvania, Kurt discovered, was a huge state. It took hours to reach Pittsburgh, and unable to sit on a train a moment later, he got off on the outskirts of the city. He was familiar with small towns and big cities, but he didn't know what to make of what was in between. Small run down restaurants. Coffee huts that doubled as car washes. Government housing.

He was hungry and slightly sick from smoking cigarettes - there was something weirdly glamorous and attractive about Elliot, and Kurt couldn't resist glamour, even now. Still, six cigarettes and no food wasn't a good combination, and he felt like his head was being squeezed.

It was a good sign that he wanted to eat something, though. He hadn't been hungry enough to eat in days.

There was a restaurant that was still open. He could see it down the road - it was one of those log cabin places, the kind with chipped plates and pinball machines. He headed towards it, pulling out a last cigarette to smoke.

It was chilly outside, the kind of chilly only the Midwest could produce. For a moment, Kurt almost missed walking to school; he missed the relief of walking through the front doors. Even if McKinley was a prison, it was a warm one. That's what he had learned there - finding small comforts in bad situations. He wasn't sure if he'd lost the ability, or if this situation was just too grim.

For a moment, he imagined his mother walking next to him. She was wearing a blue terrycloth robe - one of the only things he could remember her in - and holding her hands behind her back. She walked like a little girl, almost skipping. She looked just like Kurt. Burt said it constantly. _You have her eyes. Those weird colors. _And Kurt would roll his weird-colored eyes and respond that they were just blue, nothing to get excited about.

Alone on a strange Pennsylvania road, Kurt wished Elizabeth wasn't part of his imagination. He wished she could say something - _stop smoking, honey, think of your beautiful skin_. But it seemed all she could do was walk silently next to him.

He reached the restaurant a moment later. It was a truck stop called Lucky Lil's, and the door was ringed in cigarette butts and spit. He made a face and stepped inside.

It smelled like grease and the music was scratchy and rumbling. The lobby was filled with lotto machines, and the carpet was ground down in places so that it was gray and rubbery. Several young women lingered near the door, smoking and sticking their legs out.

He walked to the bar.

When he sat down, a bartender with a Santa Claus beard looked at him. "What'll it be?"

"Vodka, neat," said Kurt.

"We don't have vodka," said the bartender. "We've got whiskey."

Kurt raised his eyebrows, but said, "Whiskey then. Neat."

The man poured it. "ID please."

Kurt produced his ID - a fake, thanks to Malcolm. The bartender glanced at it.

"Didn't think you looked 21," he said. "This is a good fake. The local kids can't find anything near as good as this."

Kurt blanched. The bartender shrugged and gestured at him to drink.

"I got it in New York," Kurt said, after taking the shot. "My - girlfriend - is older than me. She got it."

The bartender grinned. "Aw, who're you kidding? I know your secret, kid. You think I'm going to treat you differently? Nah. I don't believe anyone's different from anyone else. We're all just people."

"That's very open minded."

"Nah. It's just common decency." The man smiled. "I'm Bubba, by the way."

Kurt put his glass on the other side of the counter. "Am I pushing my luck, Bubba?"

"No, you look like you need to get drunk," said Bubba, nodding knowingly while he poured. "Don't worry. No one'll find out. The cops have learned to avoid this place."

"It looks like a place they'd have some luck at," said Kurt, taking the second shot.

"No, that's just it - the cops here are all perverts. They need this place as much as the next man."

"Gambling, prostitution, underage drinking," said Kurt. "It's a gold mine."

Bubba grinned again. "You remind me of my daughter, if you don't mind me saying. You're very outspoken like she is."

"I don't mind," said Kurt.

"That girl lands herself in an awful lot of trouble," said Bubba. "Crazy thing."

Kurt smiled softly and tapped on his glass. "You know, I used to want to be crazy. I used to want to move out of Ohio and be a party boy and end up in huge trouble. But that's what my brother did and it's not...it's not glamorous."

"Where's your brother now?"

Kurt looked up, eyes bright. "He's dead. A drug overdose."

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I've had plenty in my family go that way. How long has it been?"

Kurt smiled at his feet. "About a week."

"Oh, son, I'm sorry. Is that why you're here?"

"I'm here...because I don't want my boyfriend to think I need help. Kind of stupid, isn't it?"

"Really stupid. Unless he's a bad guy, unless he don't treat you right."

"No. He's the only one that'll get me through this."

"So why're ya here?"

"It's what I said. It's stupid."

Bubba frowned and leaned against the counter on his elbows. "You look like you could use something to eat."

Kurt nodded. "That's what I came in here for, but..."

"But the alcohol was callin' your name," said Bubba, nodding. "How about a grilled cheese? I can fire up this little stove back here."

Kurt smiled softly. "That's what my dad would always make me. You're a little like him. Well, a different version of him. He's a congressman. Can you imagine what he'd think?"

"Oh, I bet he knows more than you think," said Bubba, lighting the stove.

Kurt didn't speak for a moment. Then he said, "You said you'd lost someone to a drug overdose?"

"Yeah," said Bubba, like he was talking about someone's else's life. "My sister. She was real talented. A tattoo artist. But she just couldn't get out of the...the culture, you know. She started dating her dealer, and that's when we all knew it was goin' downhill." Bubba looked up for an instant, eyes steely. "You know, we should have thought. We should have thought whether she felt like anybody got her, 'cause why else would she date him? He must have been the only one that got it. We shoulda tried harder."

"I'm sure you did all you could," said Kurt.

"I'm not saying it was my fault," replied Bubba. "No, no. But I didn't do all I coulda, because I never realized how serious it was. I just kept saying 'it'll be alright, she'll be alright, it's only a matter a time.' But did you know, time doesn't change a thing. And why would it? It's just time."

He took out two pieces of bread and unwrapped a slice of cheese. "You want anything on this? Tomato?"

Kurt shook his head. "No, thanks."

Bubba put the sandwich on the grill. "I found her," he went on. "Jus' in her bed. Looked like she was sleeping. But then when I shook her...she was all gray, eyes wouldn't open. I took her to the hospital but it was too late. Way too late. Been gone for hours."

Kurt sniffled. The alcohol was warming the back of his eyes, drawing out tears.

"I found my brother, too," he said finally. "He was in the hospital, and I was visiting him. And my best friend, his girlfriend, she's a wonderful singer...and she goes to one of the best performing arts schools in the world...but because of him, because he was constantly in the hospital and constantly needed her, she decided to drop out. And when he found out...it was just too much for him to handle." Kurt shook his head softly. "It wasn't an overdose. I mean, it was. But it wasn't accidental."

"Oh no, Son," said Bubba. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"He just...wandered out of the hospital, and into this old building way out of town, and took enough for... for it to be over. He left a note, and I read it when I woke up, and I found him as quickly as I could, but it wasn't quite quick enough."

Bubba was holding the grilled cheese on a spatula, frozen. Then he shook his head briskly and put it on a plate. "You're too young for that kind of thing."

Kurt rolled his lip into his mouth. "I think everyone's too young for that."

"I jus' mean...that you should have more joy in your life, you know."

"I don't know how to get it back," Kurt admitted. "I don't think I ever will get it back."

"You know, it's true that you gotta find something new to focus on. And people are always afraid of that, like they'll forget how much the person they lost mattered to them. But you don't forget them. You just forget the grief, until one day, you wake up and you don't have any grief left to forget." Bubba leaned against the counter and folded his arms. "I bought this place after my sister passed, and it took a long time, a lot of business, a lot of new trouble...and she hung around the whole time...couldn't get her off my mind. But each little bit of work I put in...it got a little bit easier." He looked at Kurt. "What do you want to do, kid?"

"Be a fashion designer," mumbled Kurt.

"Well, do it," said Bubba. "Go back home and do it. Put everything you've lost into it."

"It can't be that simple. I know it's not that simple. I've lost someone before and-"

"Of course it isn't simple. But you know what is simple? Doing something, or doing nothing. And whatever the something is, it won't be simple. But the choice? The choice is simple."

Kurt looked at Bubba for a long time, unable to say anything.

"That your brother's jacket?" asked Bubba, breaking the silence.

Kurt glanced down and nodded. "It's too big on me. He was really tall."

"He was a good kid, wasn't he?" asked Bubba.

"The best," Kurt said faintly. "He saved my life."

"Well, knowin' that, do you think he'd want you to be so broken up?"

"No," Kurt answered immediately, and for the briefest moment, his eyes lit up.

* * *

**Part 2**

It was almost night in New York City, and the setting sun was lighting up the Brooklyn skyline like a child's smile. Blaine was pacing. Santana was perched on the arm of a chair, heels clicking together like a clock. Brittany, who had come home with Santana from Boston, was chewing gum and blowing huge pink bubbles. Rachel was drinking tea, still as a statue.

"This was a bad idea," Santana said. It was the first thing anyone had said in over an hour.

"I didn't have a choice," Blaine said quietly. "They're his parents. I had to tell them."

"I mean inviting them here. They're looking for someone to blame, and now it's going to be you."

"I can't help it, Santana. We have to find him. They might know something."

"He's not a baby. Wherever he is, he's fine, and he obviously wants to be left alone."

"You don't know Kurt," said Rachel, setting her tea aside. "Blaine's right. We have to find him."

"I left home as a teenager," snapped Santana. "Don't tell me I don't know what it's like to be lost in the world. Just because I was alone, just because I didn't know what I was doing, it didn't mean I needed help. I just needed time."

"It's been a week," mumbled Blaine.

Santana hissed. "It could be years. It probably will be years. I know you think you love him, but you have to face the possibility that because of what happened, he can't be with you anymore."

"Santana!" Rachel began, shocked, but Blaine motioned at her to be quiet.

"You're right," he said dully. "You're right that we don't have a shot at this point. But I still have to tell his parents. It's the right thing to do."

Santana looked at her feet. Then she walked briskly to the door, dragging Brittany with her. "I'm getting us dinner. I don't want to be here for this."

When they were gone, Rachel and Blaine looked at each other.

"Don't listen to her," said Rachel. "You and Kurt..."

"I don't even know if he's alive."

"He is," said Rachel passionately. "He has to be. And I saw the way he looked at you."

"I don't know what I'm doing," said Blaine, sitting down and running his hands through his hair. "I miss him so much, and I'm worried out of my mind...but I can't stop talking to my ex, because he's the only other person I've ever loved, and he seems to get all this, but at the same time...he's lonely, and I'm lonely, and we're bad at being alone..." He rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted. "I keep picturing Kurt...doing something...doing something stupid."

"Doing what Finn did," whispered Rachel. "I know. I do too." She was quiet for a moment. "You know, Malcolm turned Kurt into an alcoholic. Sometimes I think he won't know when to stop drinking, and he'll just..." Her voice suddenly trembled in anger. "Malcolm was always trying to get him drunk. Kurt was such an object to him. It wasn't fair."

"I don't think Kurt realizes how attractive he is. How someone would want to show him off."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Screw him. I'm jealous of him! He's gorgeous."

Blaine smiled. "I miss his eyes."

"I miss Finn's eyes," said Rachel, voice growing thick; but then she laughed. "You know, if this was a movie, and if you weren't gay, we'd definitely fall in love. Drawn together by our losses."

Blaine grinned. "We'd be a box office hit."

"Definitely," laughed Rachel. She picked up her tea again and took a sip. "When do you think they'll be here?"

"Around five," said Blaine. Then he squinted. "What are they like?"

"They're the best people I know," said Rachel softly. "And they'll love you. You're the only person Kurt's cared about in a long time."

Blaine nodded. He was just about to go into the kitchen for some coffee when the doorbell rang.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and opened the door. But it wasn't Burt and Carole. It was a young man. He was handsome in a brave, unflinching way, with a neatly trimmed beard and highlighted hair. He was wearing a flannel shirt.

He held out his hand. "I'm Elliot."

Blaine stared. "I'm sorry - I - who are you?"

"Elliot," he repeated. "I ran into your boyfriend, Kurt, and-"

Suddenly weeks of words were rushing out of Blaine's mouth.

"You've seen Kurt? Does he look okay? Where was he? What did he say? Did he mention me? How did you find him?"

"Whoa, whoa," said Elliot. "Are you okay man? Do you need to sit down?"

"He's...I...I...why don't you come in?"

Elliot smiled. "Sure."

Blaine led him into the living room, and Rachel peeked at Elliot from the kitchen like he was an exotic species.

"Do you want something to drink? Do you-?"

Elliot held up a hand. Blaine could smell the cold on his clothing.

"Look, I barely know Kurt. I just happened to have a conversation with him, and when he found out I was going to New York, he gave me this address and told me to tell you not to worry."

"That's - that's all?" asked Blaine. "Where was he?"

"New Jersey," said Elliot. "He seemed like a nice guy. A little...little weird."

"I probably shouldn't say this, but, his brother just killed himself," Blaine said quietly, so Rachel wouldn't hear. "And Kurt just..."

"Wow, I'm sorry. That would explain some of the things he said."

"What did he say?" asked Blaine.

Elliot looked into Blaine's eyes and saw the warmth, the hope. The care in a single glance...it could have filled an ocean.

Elliot hadn't planned on staying, but Blaine got him a cup of coffee and he recounted everything he could remember. There was something about these two men, Kurt and Blaine, something unconditional and eternal, and Elliot couldn't help being moved by it. It was like they were written in the stars.

Blaine hung on every one of Elliot's words. It was honey and he was a starving explorer. Relief flooded him, and it was only now that he saw how lost he had been.

Ever since Kurt left, he hadn't been able to eat. He stopped going to work. Most days he spent in bed, staring at his light blue walls, obsessing until his thoughts built up and overflowed; then he would go out, walking and walking through the unfamiliar parts of Brooklyn, until the soles of his shoes were paper thin.

Life was in color again; the endless gray wash of days was over.

Rachel listened to Blaine and Elliot talk from the kitchen, her hand over her mouth. The weight of her relief was crushing her, dragging her down; she wanted to collapse to the floor. The thought of Finn was still unbearable, but this was a bright spot. Kurt was still alive, and if Kurt was still alive, then there was hope left after all.

Elliot left just as Burt and Carole arrived. Blaine talked faster than ever, explaining the news; Carole cried, and Burt, who looked white and papery as garlic skin, perked up. Rachel could tell by his eyes that he liked Blaine, but being Burt, was trying his hardest to hide it. Carole wasn't so mysterious. She threw her arms around Blaine almost at once.

"Did he say when he was coming back?" she asked.

"He just promised he would," said Blaine. "He didn't give a date."

Carole nodded and wiped her eyes. She looked at Burt. "Didn't I tell you Kurt would be trouble?"

Blaine brought a pot of coffee and a bag of bagels into the living room. The four of them ate and drank ravenously. Carole and Rachel were like sisters, laughing about the smallest things. Burt glanced at Carole repeatedly, stunned by the sound of her laughter. It was like Christmas. Each word, each look, was chewy candy. None of them would doubt the strength of their hope again. It was dangerous, maybe, but not as dangerous as living without it.

* * *

**Part 3**

Day 4

_**That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.**_

Kurt rented a car in Pittsburgh. It was early, and he was stiff from sleeping in the lobby of a cheap motel. Bubba had offered him a place at his house, but Kurt wouldn't accept it. He needed to get to Lake Hope.

The grief was catching up to him again, like fire spitting at his heels, and when he crossed the Ohio border, he had to bend his head and shut his eyes tightly for a moment. The reality of his situation was setting in. The leftover anger and disbelief from the time when Finn was alive was gone. He was realizing for the first time that Finn was not coming back, and that choice had nothing to do with it. There was nothing he could say, no bargain he could strike. Living without his brother had to become his reality, the same way living without his mother had. It happened, it was real, and there was nothing to do but miss them.

But missing Finn was not simple. It hurt. His chest felt sore, his heart overworked, like it was asking for a moment of impossible rest. Tears came so easily, always right under the surface; they were hotter than usual, more urgent, and there didn't seem to be an end to them. He didn't notice time passing; his sadness was stronger than his sense of life. It consumed him, so he wasn't aware of anything but pain. And the pain was strange. It was dull and cloudy, like cough syrup; it was also as sharp as knife.

He couldn't escape the need for permission. He needed to hear Finn say that it was okay for him to move on, and he knew he would never get to. He had to exist in the space that was leftover, wondering.

The road was getting icy. Snow drifted against the windshield. The oak trees along the side of the road had lost all their leaves, and the shalestone embankments were studded with frozen waterfalls. Kurt noticed he was humming to himself.

_Once there was a way to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home._

* * *

By the time he turned off the highway, it was dark and getting snowier. The last glimmers of sun glanced off the snowflakes, turning them gold. Finn used to insist on picking up Kurt from school on icy nights, even though Kurt was the better driver and had the safer car. They would argue the whole way home.

"Being gay doesn't make you a bad driver, Finn! In fact, I know more about cars than most straight guys! I know more about cars than you at least! What are spark plugs for? See! You can't even tell me!"

"Dude, shut up! I'm gonna hit a deer if you keep talking like this!"

"We should have taken my car! It's going to get vandalized if I leave it at McKinley!"

"Everyone gets dicks drawn on their cars, Kurt! Not just you!"

"It means something else when they draw _those things_ on my car! They're usually accompanied by a heart or some jazzy phrase like _come to papa_."

Then Finn would crack up, and they would peel into the driveway at a speed that caused Burt to go red in the face.

Kurt wiped the tears off his face absently. He'd been crying most of the drive.

The oak forests had subsided into lowland lakes, and the lights from houses and towns were getting sparser. He was almost to Lake Hope.

It was odd that he felt so intimately connected to a place he'd never been. He and Finn never did make it there - Kurt's broken arm was too new, too sore. Instinctively, Kurt felt over the crook just above his elbow. The pain of the break came back for the briefest second. The feeling of Blaine thumbing over the spot as they lay in bed, his eyes both fascinated and compassionate, also surfaced. "Do you have the x-rays?" he had asked. "How did the bone heal that way?" And Kurt had mumbled, "Ugh, go to sleep, Dr. Anderson."

It seemed impossible that they'd only spent one night together. They slept for a little while, but most of the night, they talked. They had to have their arms around each other the whole time, just to keep one another from falling off Blaine's twin bed.

The road turned into two lanes; it hadn't been plowed or sanded, so Kurt feathered the brakes to see how slippery it was. He realized suddenly the cabins at the lake wouldn't be open, and wondered where he would sleep. The car was small, and he didn't have anything but Finn's jacket to keep him warm. At this thought, he snuggled his nose into the jacket's collar. The tears he'd managed to resist for a few minutes came back, heavier than before.

After a minute, he had to pull onto the crumbling shoulder of the road. He tucked his knees against his chest and cried passionately for ten minutes, not bothering to wipe his eyes or his nose, gasping a little with each breath.

_This isn't real. This is real. This isn't real. This is real..._

It was too much. It was too much to lose. He didn't want to occupy this empty space. He didn't want to go on like this, so uncertain that every nerve felt raw and frayed at the ends. He couldn't think about the past, especially the good parts, without breaking down. The person he'd experienced it with wasn't able to remember it with him; the sweetness had gone out of even the sweetest parts, like a flame extinguished by a lack of oxygen.

When he reached Lake Hope, it was fully dark. The sky had cleared, and the moon was a pale white sliver above the treetops. Snow covered the ground thickly and crunched under his feet as he walked to the edge of the lake.

Ice was beginning to form on the water. It was too thin to walk on and was perfectly translucent. Kurt could see the leaves and pebbles underneath, stuck until spring. He looked down at his shoes, and then at his reflection in the ice; he ran his hands over his face, over the stubble.

He expected the grief to swoop down on him again here, here at the lake that he and his brother had never reached. But it wouldn't come, so he sat by the water, Finn's jacket wrapped around him, and watched the sky.

_I go between feeling everything and feeling nothing,_ he thought._ I'm afraid it will never stop. That I'll never be sure of anything again. That I'll never remember what my life is for._

* * *

Day 5

_**I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.**_

Kurt shuffled back to the car around midnight, stiff with cold, the tips of his hair frosty. He got into the driver's seat, started the car and waited for the weak heat to warm his hands. He leaned the seat back, and despite the cold, began drifting off. Grief was warming him, spreading all the way to the tips of his fingers and keeping him alive when he didn't want to be kept that way.

He wondered if it was how Finn felt, all the times he collapsed outside in the snow.

It was nearly morning when he heard it. _Meow_. He sat up, rubbed his eyes with frozen fingers, and glanced around. The inside of the car was foggy with condensation. Pale blue light was diffusing into the sky, and geese chattered on the lake.

_Meow_.

There it was again. Kurt rubbed the shells of his ears - they were cold as ice - and listened more intently. He could hear his watch. He could hear the car whining in the cold. He could hear snow sloughing off the tree branches and landing on the ground below. He could also hear, very faintly, a cat.

He opened his door and stepped outside. It was even colder than it had been the night before, and the air bit into his lungs as he breathed. He walked around the car, looking underneath, but there was nothing there. Then he noticed a dumpster a few feet away.

He lowered himself onto his hands and knees, asphalt and ice cutting in, and scanned the ground underneath the dumpster. In the corner, there was a tiny gray and white kitten, meowing feebly. Kurt's blue-green-gold eyes widened. He couldn't imagine how the kitten had gotten there, or how it had survived the cold. But there it was, just feet away.

Kurt sat back on his ankles, astonished. Then he jumped up and ran to the car, digging through his backpack until he located some string cheese. He cut off a piece with his nail, went back to the dumpster, and offered the cheese to the kitten. "Tch tch," he clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Here kitty. Here's some cheese..."

The kitten looked at him with blue eyes that were so big they seemed at risk of falling out. An unthinking smile touched Kurt's lips. The kitten started to meow again, so Kurt shook the piece of cheese to make it more enticing.

It took twenty minutes for the kitten to limp forward, snatch the cheese and gobble it down. Kurt lured it from under the dumpster with a few more pieces, and then picked it up. It was desperately skinny and its paws were frigid.

He tucked it inside his jacket.

"You aren't in very good shape," he mumbled as he walked back to the car. "How'd you get here, hmm? Did someone dump you here?"

Kurt slid into the driver's seat and zipped the letterman jacket up around the cat's small form. He could feel the warmth leaving his body to warm the kitten's, and it hit him all at once.

_This is what life's for. This is what Finn did for me._

He looked down at the kitten's tiny body and felt it shiver against him. Tears flooded his eyes and he nearly gasped at the power of his realization.

_His death isn't important. Death isn't important. Life is. His life mattered and it will continue to matter as long as I'm alive too. I'm not keeping him alive. That's impossible. But I'm recognizing that he lived, that he really lived...and in a way...that does keep him alive. __Finn was beautiful and heroic,__and he died and no, it isn't fair. But death isn't what's important. I can remember him as he lived. I can remember what he did._

Kurt looked out over the dashboard; the sun was coming up over the lake, melting it at the edges. He felt Finn all around, felt the relief, the permission. _Go on, Dude. Go on with your life. You've got way too much to offer to stick around for me. Go break a hip or a leg or whatever they say._

A few stars remained where the sky was still dark blue. Kurt thought it was funny that his family considered driving so far to look at the stars now; just because they couldn't be seen from Lima didn't mean they didn't exist or that they shone any less brightly. It was enough to know that they were out there somewhere.

He knew it wouldn't be easy, but the same was true for Finn.

He started the car and wondered if he had the money for a plane ticket and some cat food.

* * *

**Quotes credit (in order):**

**The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald**

**American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck**

**Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath**

**What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, Charles Bukowski**

**The Fault in Our Stars, John Green**

**The Old Astronomer, Sarah Williams**

**Songs for this chapter:**

**Flickers by London Grammar **

**Sleep Baby Sleep by The Broods**

**What Makes A Man by City and Colour**

**I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab for Cutie**

**Thank you so much for reading! I don't write for reviews, but they do make my day. (MAKE MY DAY!)**

**There's one more chapter after this. Don't worry. I can't resist Klaine reunions. (Who can?)**


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